The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority

Question

The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out  fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where  people love premium citrus.

A. fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where

B. fresh, the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, a place where

C. fresh and the vast majority are exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose

D. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, where

E. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

This confusing sentence requires a careful analysis. The original (A) is correct, but many people do not like the structure at the end of the sentence. This structure is called an absolute phrase and is relatively common in language. Absolute phrases are modifiers containing a noun/pronoun and participle and they typically used at the beginning or end of the sentence. Consider this example: “Her arms folded across her chest, Jane sat dejected in the corner.” In this sentence correction problem, “the vast majority exported…” is playing exactly the same role and is correct. In (B) the verb “is” is improperly inserted after “majority” creating a comma splice error. You cannot say: “The oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority is exported…” Answer choices (C), (D), and (E) all contain a bungled series at the end and are thus incorrect. You cannot say “the vast majority are exported to A, B, C, and to D…” as the last “to” creates a bungled series.  The correct answer is (A).

phtarta · Answer

The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where people love premium citrus.

A. fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where --> Correct

B. fresh,   the vast majority is exported to Canada  , Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, a place where  -->Wrong. Two independent clauses are joined without a conjunction.

C. fresh and the vast majority are exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly,   to   Singapore, whose  --> Wrong. Parallelism Issue.

D. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly,   to   Singapore, where  --> Wrong. Parallelism Issue.

E. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly,   to   Singapore, whose  --> Wrong. Parallelism Issue.

Experts, please correct me if my explanations are wrong.

SajjitaKundu · Answer

IMHO D..

Rest have either conjunction errors or SV errors.

Posted from my mobile device

thangvietnam · Answer

look at choice d and e. they use separate clauses. this makes " vast majority" unclear. "vast mojority" of what

choice A, in contrast, use a phrase which modifies main clause. this modification make the two ideas connected closely

A is correct.

daagh · Answer

B is also guilty of calling four countries as 'a place' , a singular

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo A

This question was very difficult to solve.

This sentence uses a very sophisticated modifier called absolute modifiers.
The structure of the modifier is Noun/Pronoun + modifier.

As per this only A is the winner, let us analyse other choices as well.

B In B there no conjunction to connect two independent sentences. A typical comma splice error.

C It fixes conjunction error of B but commits gets the list wrong. Correct list is to X, Y, and Z and or to X, to Y, and to Z. The majority is singular so we have to is

D Again the list is wrong.

E List is wrong

PreiteeRanjan · Answer

The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where people love premium citrus.

A. fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where

B. fresh, the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, a place where

C. fresh and the vast majority are exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose

D. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, where

E. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose

OA-A
B is wrong biz 2 ICs are joined by comma and for comparing multiple countries to a single city.
C AND E wrong biz of WHOSE referring to a place.
left with A nd D
Now mark the essence of the original sentence in which author is linking two things by an absolute phrase ,which is GMAT’s fab.
even D has parallelism issue bkz of TO in the final entity.either TO should be in every entity or should be in the first entity.

Raxit85 · Answer

Hi, Veritaskarishma/ daagh/ empowergmatrich,

What is the role of 'exported' in the sentence? Is it verb or pp

As far as I know, Absolute phrase construction is starting with pronoun (possessive) only. Can anyone shade more light on such type of construction or can you share any reference material.

Regards, 
Raxit.

sathik63 · Answer

Exported is not a verb here it's a participle or a verb-Ed Modifier. Absolute phrase can begin with Noun + Modifier Check out this link https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/absolute- ... -the-gmat/ Posted from my mobile device

anshsaurabh447 · Answer

The solution to this SC question is simple.
A. Nothing wrong but let's just keep it aside as many people would still be confused with the structure.
B. After the comma we have an independent clause which makes the sentence a RUN-ON.
C. 'ARE' usage is wrong. We need a singular (is) .
D. The 'to' before Singapore causes a parallelism issue.
E. Same reason as in the option D + 'whose' usage is wrong

Please correct me if my explanation is wrong.

anshsaurabh447 · Answer

The solution to this SC question is simple.
A. Nothing wrong but let's just keep it aside as many people would still be confused with the structure.
B. After the comma we have an independent clause which makes the sentence a RUN-ON.
C. 'ARE' usage is wrong. We need a singular (is) .
D. The 'to' before Singapore causes a parallelism issue.
E. Same reason as in the option D + 'whose' usage is wrong

Please correct me if my explanation is wrong.

ninja10 · Answer

Even if there is absolute phrase, isn't it too far away from oranges to modify them?
Though other choices are clearly wrong, I can't understand why A is right.

Please share your thought on that.

suryakantraycha · Answer

The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out  fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where  people love premium citrus.

Meaning Analysis: The sentence talks about Florida oranges that are majorly exported to various regions.

Error Analysis:

1. SV Agreement: Florida oranges - are; the second part of the statement is not a clause, hence the vast majority doesn't require a verb.
2. Verb Tense: No issue 3. Pronoun: No issue 4. Modifier: Noun + noun modifier ' the vast majority.....' correctly modifies Florida oranges. 
5. IIims/Comparison - No issue 6.Idiom - No issue

A. fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, where -  Correct.

B. fresh, the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, Singapore, a place where -  Incorrect as this sentence is making the second part a clause without proper conjunction.

C. fresh and the vast majority are exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose -  Incorrect as this sentence is making the second part a clause without proper conjunction. Whose incorrectly modifies place Singapore.

D. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, where -  Incorrect as this sentence is making the second part a clause without proper conjunction.
 
E. fresh and the vast majority is exported to Canada, Europe, China, and, increasingly, to Singapore, whose -  Incorrect as this sentence is making the second part a clause without proper conjunction. Whose incorrectly modifies place Singapore.

Nups1324 · Answer

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma AndrewN generis AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep EMPOWERgmatRichC egmat Dear experts, It'll be really helpful if you could give us a detailed explanation. Thank you

Posted from my mobile device

AndrewN · Answer

I would be happy to oblige,  Nups1324 ; this is a rather terse OE. If a certain construct is unclear, it can help sometimes to focus on just the essential parts of the sentence. Here, we get something like the following:

The oranges are shipped out fresh... exported to A, B, C, and D, where people love citrus.

I think the component  the vast majority , missing from my chopped-and-channeled sentence above, may be confusing a number of people. We will address this more below.

Remove  the vast majority , and you have a straightforward -ed modifier:  oranges are shipped out fresh... exported to Canada...  The main clause tells us that something is sent, and the modifier tells us where. No problem. There is also no issue with listing the destinations in  to A, B, C, and D  form, rather than repeating  to  each time. Then, since  increasingly  is self-contained within double commas in this answer choice and every other, we can safely skip over it in the sentence and focus on the final element. Does it make sense to say that  the vast majority of oranges   exported to Singapore, where people love premium citrus ? Sure. Singapore is a place or location, so  where  is fitting. In short, I can find nothing to argue against in this answer choice. But unless I had 10 seconds on the clock, I would check the other answers to feel better about committing to this one.

There are a couple issues with this one. If the comma were a semicolon instead, then adding a verb to what is a modifier in the original sentence would not be a problem: a semicolon is used to join two independent clauses. But with a comma, that same  is  overloads the sentence and creates what is known as a comma splice, an instance in which two independent clauses are joined by nothing more than a comma (i.e. without a conjunction). I know that the GMAT™ is not typically a straight-up test of grammar, but at the same time, it is not going to let a sentence with a comma splice beat out a more grammatical option. Then,  is  is not even the right conjugation of  to be  that we need here. It is  the vast majority  of  oranges  that  are  exported to certain locations, not  is . We are counting individual fruits. At the tail-end of the underlined portion, what does  a place where  achieve in the way of clarity that  where  does not convey on its own? With all these considerations in mind, we can safely call this answer suboptimal next to (A) and eliminate it.

The head of this suggested replacement is missing a comma between two independent clauses, so once again, the grammar is shaky. Add to this an extraneous  to  before the final country in the list, and we have a parallelism issue. For the extra  to  to work, we would need to wrap up the first list at  China , as in,  exported to Canada, Europe, and China, and, increasingly, to Singapore . Finally, although  whose  differs from the majority of the other answer choices, it is not incorrect to mention the name of a country and then refer to its population using the possessive pronoun, making the split a red herring. Taken as a whole, this answer choice is just as flawed as (B) was above.

There is nothing new that this answer choice presents that we have not seen already. The same comma we needed before is absent again, the same  is  is used in reference to  the majority of oranges , and the same  to  is just as superfluous at the end.

Once again, all of the issues here have already been discussed above. For those who may have considered (E), do you think that with all the other potential discussion points on display, GMAC™ would take a  where/whose  split and make  that  the crucial decision factor? I think not. If anything, (D) and (E) can be used to cast doubt on each other.

With that said, choice (A) is a clear winner. When you can find nothing to argue against in an answer choice, then that is the one you need to choose. I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

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The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The remaining Florida oranges are shipped out fresh, the vast majority

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