set 3 Q34

radhika1306 · Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:06 am

Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only.
A. in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
B. in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
E. department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball

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Danielle · Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:54 pm

The answer is D. This is an example of a sentence made up of a mix of dependent and independent clauses. The example sentence is incorrect for several reasons, one of which is that it treats all of the phrases the same. There are different grammar rules for each though. A dependent phrase is separated by commas, but an independent phrase is separated by a semicolon or dash.

The example sentence is also unparallel, using different verb tenses to describe sporting goods store shoppers. It also lacks a pronoun to refer back to the 'shoppers' in the first part of the sentence. It looks like it could be contrasting sporting goods shoppers and department stores, rather than sporting goods shoppers and department store shoppers

D is correct because it corrects the sentence by adding the pronoun 'those' in, to refer to shoppers. It also takes the independent clause (which is actually a stand alone sentence) talking about what they will buy and places a semicolon in front of it, following the rules for independent clauses.

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Rashmi1804 · Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:19 am

Is the structure of Option C...wrong ???

I understood there are two independent clauses connected without a conjunction.
but both sentences " do buy..." and "do not....." describe the characteristics of the shoppers...isnt it ....

also i dont see any problem with its reference to the right noun.

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Sher1 · Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:01 am

I would go with C. Don't like the structure of D especially in the end when it uses as well, looks unidiomatic.

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James_83 · Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:40 am

IMO D.

C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball

C suggests that shoppers in sporting stores
a)do very little impulse
b)do not buy a pair of skis and .....

as compared with shoppers in department stores. As the original sentence suggests, the comparison is regarding the part a) only and part b) exemplify the issue and is concerned with only shoppers in sporting stores. In nut shell, C creates a run-on sentence making the comparison illogical.

So, D is the best choice.

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gmat740 · Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:44 am

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delhiboy1979 · Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:56 pm

Should be D.

'those in' is definitely required for parallelism. So we are left with C and D. In C I do not like the 'do not buy a pair of skis' after the comma, doesnt make sense. hence D it is.