Sentence Correction

The golden crab of the Gulf of Mexico has not been fished commercially in great numbers, primarily on
account of living at great depths-- 2,500 to 3,000 feet down.
(A) on account of living
(B) on account of their living
(C) because it lives
(D) because of living
(E) being they live

Could someone confirm whether "on account of " and "because of " are really undiomatic

IMO :C

OA please!

"on account of" is okay, but "because" is shorter (1 word instead of 3) and has the exact same meaning. Thus, "on account of" could be in the right answer, but here when we're given a better option we should take it.

"because of" is not unidiomatic, but should only be used with a noun. For example: "I am going to take the GMAT because of my ambition to go to business school." It should not be used with a gerund because a gerund should not follow a preposition. That is the awkwardness rule at play here. So "of living" is awkward compared to "it lives," used properly within an adverbial clause introduce by the subordinating conjunction "because."

SticklorForDetails wrote:"on account of" is okay, but "because" is shorter (1 word instead of 3) and has the exact same meaning. Thus, "on account of" could be in the right answer, but here when we're given a better option we should take it.

"because of" is not unidiomatic, but should only be used with a noun. For example: "I am going to take the GMAT because of my ambition to go to business school." It should not be used with a gerund because a gerund should not follow a preposition. That is the awkwardness rule at play here. So "of living" is awkward compared to "it lives," used properly within an adverbial clause introduce by the subordinating conjunction "because."

why Gerund can not follow a preposition.? pls, explain more

a gerund is used to refer to general action not of specific subject in the main clause when there is no action noun

a participle is used to refer to specific action of a specific subject in the main clause. the action in the participle is in the same time with the time of main clause.

in this sentence, "living " can not be a gerund because we need that "living" refers to the crab. In this sentense, "living" is not participle because we do not need "living" happen simultaneously with "has not been". So, "living" both as particile or as gerund is not suitable here.

experts, this is question from og 10 and we can think it is too old to study . but, there are many similar questions in gmatprep, so it is worth studying this question.