Received a PM asking me to reply.

In future, please type out the entire problem; do not use an image unless there is a graphic associated with the problem and that graphic cannot be reproduced in text. When you post an image, we can't see it at the bottom of the page when we post the reply, so it takes a lot longer to answer b/c we have to keep moving back and forth between two windows. I'll answer this one this time, but next time, I'll ask you to type out the problem (this is actually one of the forum rules, by the way... ).

This is a tricky one. There's a list of three things here, but the list is split into two locations, and that allows them to introduce an error. Is the list a list of the three Black Americans? Or is the list a list of the three best novels? The sentence tells us it's the three best novels, so we have to have each item in the list in the form of the name of the novel. The first one (non-underlined) is: Jean Toomer's Cane, but the next two concentrate on the author's names.

Eliminate A. Eliminate C and D for the same reason.

Next, we've got the singular / plural split on Black American(s). Let's strip things down a bit: "Cane <is> one <of the best> novel(s) written by..." Cane was written by one person (as was each of the other novels), so the lead-in should be singular.

Finally, the first item on the list is "Jean Toomer's Cane." We start with the possessive form of the author's name and then follow with the title. B does not do this but E does - and, since this is a list, we want that parallel structure for the items on the list.

There's also an additional ambiguity in choices B and C. Using "including" after the hyphen opens up the possibility that we mean "Black Americans, including <list names of Black Americans>." In other words, the focus could be on Black Americans, not a list of novels.

Re: "being," I'm skeptical when I see the word, but I don't cross something off because of it. Same thing when I see something especially wordy / awkward. The first thing I do is go after all of the grammar. If, after I've dealt with all of the grammar and meaning, I have two choices left and one contains being and one doesn't, then I'll pick the one that doesn't contain being. (Or, if I'm left with two choices and one is more awkward than the other, then I pick the one that's less awkward.)

Basically, I use it as a tie-break when I've already dealt with everything else that I can deal with. Most of the time, I don't actually have to decide based upon "being" at all!

Oh, just saw the last post - I was replying to the one before that! It is very easy to use "being" incorrectly in a sentence, so most of the time, "being" is indeed wrong. But it is not always wrong - it is a real word and can be used correctly in a sentence!