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Heating-oil prices

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by metallicafan » Thu Nov 17, 2011 2:08 pm
I think this question was discussed before, but none of the post solved my doubts. Please your help.
I don't understand the OE. Please, your comments.

Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

A)
B) Heating-oil prices are expected to rise higher this year over last because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did
C) Expectations are for heating-oil prices to be higher this year than last year's becuase refiners are paying about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did
D) It is the expectation that heating-oil prices will be higher this year over last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil now than what they were
E) It is the expected that heating-oil prices will rise higher this year than last year's because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did

These are my doubts:
Option A is not clear to me because it seems that it is comparing "heating-oil prices" with "last [year]", so it would be incorrect, but it is the OA. In this sense, I suppose that option A is ommiting some words, but I cannot identify which words. It is not clear whether the prices in this year are expected to be higher than the estimated prices in the last year or the real prices in that year. For example:
Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than [they were] last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were.
The first "were" seems that it is ommiting "expected to be", so we would be talking about the estimated prices last year. But if it is not ommiting "expected to be", it could seem that we are talking about the real prices.

But if we write in this way:
Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last year's [prices] because ....
Here we are comparing nouns: heating-oil prices of this year with those prices of the las year (last year's). However, the OE says that this is not parallel. Why? I don't understand it.

Please your comments about it.

OA is A.
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by essaysnark » Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:00 am
Hey metallicafan, let's give it a shot.

The meaning is:

This year's expected prices are higher than last year's actual prices were.

You almost had it here:
metallicafan wrote:Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last year's [prices] because ....
The missing words are:

Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than they were last year because...

The pronoun they is understood. So it's comparing the (expected) prices this year with the (actual) prices last year.

The second part of the sentence - [R]efiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year. - totally correct as-is.

Did we add anything useful?

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by sk8legend408 » Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:31 am
You can also eliminate other choices. B and E state that prices will rise higher which is not the original meaning of the sentence, therefore eliminate B and E.

C ends with more than they did but does not give a time period - eliminate C.

Higher this year over last is incorrect - eliminate D.

You are left with A.
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by mankey » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:40 am
Even I find the OA very unconvincing because of comparison issues. Even I feel the comparisons being made are very confusing, almost on the same lines as the original poster.

Though I have no doubt that on the basis of POE, I could select A in 15 secs, since the other options are almost illogical!!

Experts please help.

Regards.
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by essaysnark » Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:41 pm
Hi sk8legend408 - please explain further - we're not getting your point.
sk8legend408 wrote:You can also eliminate other choices. B and E state that prices will rise higher which is not the original meaning of the sentence, therefore eliminate B and E.
The meaning of the original is that prices will be higher this year - which (in our opinion) is equivalent to saying that they will "rise higher" - because prices are fluid, they can't "be" higher unless they "rise" to that level somhow. Not seeing the difference you're pointing out, would you please elaborate?

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by sk8legend408 » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:48 am
Hi essaysnark,

You are correct that the prices will rise but the comparison here is that the prices will be higher this year in comparison to last year. However the other two choices state that the prices will rise higher this year than they did last year. Let me give you an example:

1st condition: Last year's prices were $100 a barrel. This year's prices are $105 a barrel. The prices are higher this year than last year.

2nd condition: At the beginning of last year the price per barrel of oil was $100 and it finished at the end of the year with a price of $120.
This year the prices started at $120 per barrel and finished with $160. That means the prices rose higher this year than they did last year.

Do you see the difference? This is the message that B and E are conveying which is incorrect.

I hope my explanation was clear.
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by essaysnark » Sat Nov 26, 2011 9:48 am
sk8legend408, yes we see what you're saying, but we don't see how that matches the answer options posed above. To us, all the answers generally mean the same thing: that prices this year will be higher than last year. We don't see these options stating a comparison of how much they will rise. Can you point to an official explanation or other GMAT examples that deal with this issue?

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by amit2k9 » Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:44 pm
Between A and B,in B rise higher than price/of rise percentage is in question.
A its clear.
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