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on account of vs because of

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by hemant_rajput » Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:03 am
what actually is the difference in the usage of "on account of" and "because of"? Where is one preferred over other ?

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) because they live

[spoiler]OA:C[/spoiler]
I'm no expert, just trying to work on my skills. If I've made any mistakes please bear with me.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by [email protected] » Mon Aug 12, 2013 12:52 pm
Hi hemant_rajput,

The two phrases "on account of" and "because of" essentially mean the same thing: they both mean "because"

As a general rule, if two answers have the same meaning, then the shorter answer tends to be correct (of course, you have to make sure that ALL the applicable grammar rules are correct; sometimes the "shorter" answer has a grammar error in it, so that answer is wrong).

In this SC, you have to address the pronoun rule; since "the golden crab" is a singular noun, you would need to pronoun "it". With that info, I think that you'll find this SC is a bit easier than you first expected.

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Rich
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