Question
Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the south are hurting crops and therefore raised corn and soybean prices.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
The statement presents a contrast: X, even though Y.
X presents two facts about prices at the producer level. These prices:
- are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago
- and are going down
In the comparison part, ellipsis has been used. Without ellipsis, it should be “these prices are only 1.3 percent higher now than they were a year ago”. We can see that the elided part contains a verb (were) different from the verb (are) in the first part of the comparison. In such cases, we strongly prefer to not elide the different verb for clarity.
Y says that
- floods in the Midwest (First subject)
- and drought in the south (Second subject)
- are hurting crops (first verb)
- and therefore raised corn and soybean prices. (second verb)
It says that floods and droughts are hurting crops and, thus, raising prices. However, the sentence has used simple past tense “raised” for the result part. This use distorts the meaning of the sentence and is thus incorrect.
Therefore, the sentence has one error and one area of improvement.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons described above. OG17 explanation says that this option compares prices with a year. However, I disagree with this part of the explanation. If this explanation is correct, the correct option in this question shouldn’t be correct. (OG explanations are ‘almost always’ correct but not always. However, OG questions are ALWAYS correct.)
(B) Correct. Both the errors in the original sentence have been corrected. The first part logically compares the prices now with the prices of a year ago.
(C) Incorrect. In this option, it’s hard to find the subject for “are hurting… and raising”. The only structural possibility for the subject is “Prices at the producer level’. However, such a subject-verb pair won’t make any sense.
(D) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- “more…as” is incorrect. “more…than” is the correct idiom.
- The “even though” part uses simple present tenses “hurt” and “raise”, presenting the information as a general fact rather than as an ongoing action that would make sense with the ongoing action “are going down” in the first part of the sentence.
(E) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- “more…as” is incorrect. “more…than” is the correct idiom.
- Same error as in option C.
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Prices are higher now than year ago.
1. prices are higher now than (prices were )a year ago. Correct but less preferred as you mentioned were and are different helping verb.
2. prices are higher now than that of year ago.
its correct as prices now vs price a year ago is compared.
3. Prices at producer level are higher now than (prices at producer level) a year ago. ???
can we understand this ellipsis where prices at producer level is elided. is it correct to think this way ellipsis…
Russia entered with more supply in this campaign than for any other campaign.
here ellipsis is Russia entered with more supply in this campaign than (supply) for any other campaign.
Your 3rd sentence is the same as the 1st sentence and is thus fine.
Your 2nd sentence is wrong.
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