For the best extraction of the flavor of saffron threads, it should be soaked in liquid after being pounded with a mortar and pestle.

A) Same
B) To best extract their flavor, saffron threads should be soaked in liquid after pounding
C) The best way to extract the flavor from saffron threads is soaking them in liquid after being pounded
D) The best way to extract the flavor from saffron threads is to soak them in liquid after pounding them
E) The flavor of saffron threads can best be extracted by soaking it in liquid after pounding it.

D is the correct answer.

My thoughts -

The original sentence has a problem of incorrect pronoun reference. ‘It’ (singular pronoun) refers back to ‘threads’ (plural noun).

B. ‘best extract’ is incorrect grammatically. ‘best’ (adjective) should modify a noun.
C. ‘after being pounded’ is too wordy.
D. Corrects other errors. Hence is the best choice.
E. ‘It’ refers to plural noun threads and in passive voice.

Can anyone/instructors shed some more light on this one? Am I on track here?

Thanks

You are on track with D and E.

A: You have correctly identified the most fatal issue here (singular/plural disagreement). There is also a major issue with wordiness.
B: The principal error here is the misplaced modifier: 'to best extract their flavor' mistakenly refers to saffron threads, leading to the absurd conclusion that they are extracting their own flavor.
C: You are right to be suspicious of the word 'being.' The principal error here, though, is lack of parallelism: since the first half is 'soaking them in liquid', the second half should be 'pounding them with...'.

could someone please explain what's parallel in the correct choice, D? Using the same logic that Ron used for choice C, I think 'soak' should be parallel to "pound" but we have gerund, "pounding" and those two are not obviously parallel.

correct idiomatic usage forbids you from using completely similar structures here.

if "after" is followed by a verb form, that verb form must be a gerund (-ING). hence "after pounding".

but "the best way ... is ..." must go with an infinitive (TO + verb), not a gerund. i.e., you must write "the best way is ... TO + verb".
it's unidiomatic to write "the best way is ... verbING".

Ron,
Thanks for explaining each choice superbly. eventhough I picked correct answer, I didn't know why exactly B was wrong. I knew some thing wrong with it, but didn't catch the subtle meaning error .

You made it clear why B is wrong.

Thanks!

glad the explanation helped.

(A) For the best extraction of the flavor of saffron threads, it should be soaked in liquid after being pounded

(E) The flavor of saffron threads can best be extracted by soaking it in liquid after pounding it

I think in choice A and E the issue is not singular vs plural, pronoun 'it' illogically refers to 'flavor'; how can a flavor be soaked?

flavor of safron threads = flavor;

of safron threads is a prepositional modifier;


If the answer choice said 'flavor from saffron threads' then there might be an issue with singular vs plural


Please correct me if I'm wrong!

you're basically looking at the same issue from a different angle -- although the angle from which you are looking at the issue is less efficient, because it requires you to look through all the nouns in the sentence.

the BEST way to deal with pronouns:
1
* use your common sense -- and your understanding of the sentence -- to figure out what the pronoun SHOULD stand for (it should be a NOUN)
2
* go see whether that NOUN is in the sentence
3
* if it is there, check whether it matches in terms of singular/plural

this is it.

in this sentence, the clearly intended meaning of “it” is a saffron thread.
this noun is not in the sentence, so the sentence is wrong -- you have no reason whatsoever to look through other singular nouns! the noun that you want is not there!

--

caveat:
whenever you deal with pronouns, be sure that the pronoun in question is not one of these exceptions:
post49622.html#p49622

Maybe from the stand point of an expert it is less efficient, but from the standpoint of the student it is much more efficient to understand the meaning, which in case of A and E is nonsensical.

Not only logically, but structurally does pronoun 'it' refer to the flavor, and I'd rather spend extra effort to understand the underlying meaning of the choice than look for plural/singular antecedent. The problem here is definitely not with plural/singular disagreement (in term of plural/singular pronoun 'it' - singular refers to the word 'flavor' - also singular - NO PROBLEMS here), the problem is indeed with the meaning, which doesn't make any sense...

even if the answer choices used singular Flavor of saffron thread pronoun 'it' would still structurally refer to 'flavor'

daurenter, this looks more like a comment, so please let us know if you have a question.

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Yes, I guess this is more of a comment than a question.

However, I'm more concerned with the correct understanding of the question. I've been preparing for the GMAT for 3 months now and I find a lot of questions with poor or incorrect explanations, at the same time I have observed that MGMAT provides the best explantions on the internet(especially RON-Lunarpower- the best Verbal instructor ever!!!!) and I was surprised to see this explantation from Ron, which is really and exception from the norm. Previously I thought that I agree with 100% of Ron's explanation, untill I've seen this one. Now i think I agree with 99% of Ron's explanations. My question is:

Is there S-V agreement problem OR a Meaning problem(as per my comments above)?

Please clarify!

Also I wouls like to know if my comment above is correct:

daurentur wrote:

even if the answer choices used singular Flavor of saffron thread pronoun 'it' would still structurally refer to 'flavor'

PS: I consider my verbal - a result of 80% of Ron's and 20% of Stacey's exceptional explantaions!

we aren't really in disagreement; both of these methods are viable. however, your method still requires the student to look through all of the nouns in the sentence, while the above method doesn't.

here's another example:
Supporters of the home team threw glassware onto the field, and it resulted in a penalty.

--> using the method above, you would just realize that “it” is intended to refer to the action of throwing glassware onto the field. there is no noun for this action, so the pronoun is wrong.
done.

--> using your method, you would have to spend unnecessary time trying to decide whether “it” refers to “home team” or to “glassware”. since both of these are clearly nonsensical references, there is no reason to think about such things -- i.e., why would you worry about which nonsense meaning is better than which other nonsense meaning.

--

thanks for the kind words, by the way

hi,ron,en
I want to ask why I do not need to consider the subject about“ after pounding...",

I think "after pounding" is wrong, because I think in C, after pounded is correct because threads can not pound by themselves, and they are pounded, right?

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is NEVER a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is NEVER a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking -- you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you dispose of the idea that they might be wrong.

--

“pounding” is acceptable because the sentence is just talking about the processes performed on saffron threads. the identity of the person performing those processes is irrelevant, and so doesn't need to be mentioned in the sentence.
the fact that the saffron threads themselves are not performing the actions indicated by these verbs should be clear from the fact that they are the object of the verbs, as indicated by the pronoun “them” serving as the object.

also -- in general, if you thought that every sentence has to mention explicitly the identity of whoever is performing some action, that's definitely not true.
for example, new york's streets are often so congested that walking through them can be faster than driving is a correct sentence; the meaning of the sentence does not depend on the identity of the specific person who is walking and/or driving, so there is no need to mention the identity of that person (and the sentence would be a lot more confusing if it did mention the person's identity).

SO, why B is wrong?