Sentence Correction

Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that

Ron,
You eliminated A,B and C in the above SC because

(a)
you cannot write "proof of ... fields ... posing". this kind of construction is just wrong.
sorry.
this is going to annoy a lot of people, because this sort of construction is bread and butter in spoken language,
BUT:
if the focus of the construction is the ACTION, then you must use the POSSESSIVE form for the noun/pronoun preceding the "-ing" participle. since that's fatally awkward to say in words, i'll provide an example:
everyone laughed at me accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> WRONG. sorry. this sentence would actually mean that everyone laughed at me as they were walking into the girls' bathroom.
everyone laughed at my accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> CORRECT, because it's the action (my walking into the bathroom, not really me) that they're laughing at.

You can interpret B as saying Noun Verbing ----------------------(1)
But you can also interpret B as saying pronoun (their ) sales Verbing which seems to be rights since its the sales that were high . ------------------------------------(2)
i am confused as to whats the action that we should concentrate on
its their "noun Verbing "
or Noun's verbing
If we concentrate on the Nouns verbing then B is wrong but if we concentrate on their (Possessive Pronoun ) Noun Verbing then B seems to be right

What is the correct answer?
I go with E.

Ozlemg wrote:What is the correct answer?
I go with E.

Its D

lunarpower wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote: You can interpret B as saying Noun Verbing ----------------------(1)
But you can also interpret B as saying pronoun (their ) sales Verbing which seems to be rights since its the sales that were high . ------------------------------------(2)

nope -- the stated effect came about because the sales were bad, not because of any inherent qualities of the sales themselves. therefore, the relevant choices are wrong for the reasons quoted above.

Hi Ron , Thanks for the reply.
I didnt understand how could inherent qualities validate the answer choices A, B and C .I thought the rules for the use of the structure possessive Noun Verbing were limited to the scope of ownership of action . I thought that your decision to use a possessive noun was only governed by the logic that the SC was talking about the action and not the noun .

mundasingh123 wrote:Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that

In A and E, as much because...as that is not parallel. Eliminate A and E.

In B and C, as much because of...as because shoppers is not parallel. Eliminate B and C.

The correct answer is D.

D offers the most parallel comparison: as much because their sales...as because shoppers....

Thanks GmatGuruNY This was a much simpler way to arrive at the OA

GMATGuruNY wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that

In A and E, as much because...as that is not parallel. Eliminate A and E.

In B and C, as much because of...as because shoppers is not parallel. Eliminate B and C.

The correct answer is D.

D offers the most parallel comparison: as much because their sales...as because shoppers....

Yes D is the winner due to parallelism.

mundasingh123 wrote:Thanks GmatGuruNY This was a much simpler way to arrive at the OA

GMATGuruNY wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that

In A and E, as much because...as that is not parallel. Eliminate A and E.

In B and C, as much because of...as because shoppers is not parallel. Eliminate B and C.

The correct answer is D.

D offers the most parallel comparison: as much because their sales...as because shoppers....

Other than this parallelism trick, suppose you don't see the parallelism. I thought the idiom when taking the test might be :

as much because X as that Y.

could an expert help with this one? I don't understand Ron's explanation, it seems as if most of the explanation earlier he gave is not available here.

GMATGuruNY wrote: In B and C, as much because of...as because shoppers is not parallel. Eliminate B and C.

The correct answer is D.

D offers the most parallel comparison: as much because their sales...as because shoppers....

Hi GMATGuruNY,
Couple of quick questions -

1. Isn't it another potential ERROR in BOTH B and C -- NO main VERB in the underlined BECAUSE clause. (BUT the second BECAUSE clause does contain the main VERB, so it's clearly a PARALLELISM issue)

2. In OA : sales a year earlier had been so bad -- isn't the CORRECT IDIOM "SO X THAT Y" ?

Hi GMATGuruNY - any update on my above concerns ?

Look forward to your feedback. Much thanks in advance!

RBBmba@2014 wrote:1. Isn't it another potential ERROR in BOTH B and C -- NO main VERB in the underlined BECAUSE clause. (BUT the second BECAUSE clause does contain the main VERB, so it's clearly a PARALLELISM issue)

because of is a PREPOSITION.
A preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.
B and C: Retailers reported...because of...
Here, it would be incorrect for a subject and verb to follow because of, since a preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.

2. In OA : sales a year earlier had been so bad -- isn't the CORRECT IDIOM "SO X THAT Y" ?

One purpose of so is to EMPHASIZE.
In the OA, so bad means EXTREMELY BAD.
This construction is correct.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

RBBmba@2014 wrote:1. Isn't it another potential ERROR in BOTH B and C -- NO main VERB in the underlined BECAUSE clause. (BUT the second BECAUSE clause does contain the main VERB, so it's clearly a PARALLELISM issue)

because of is a PREPOSITION.
A preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.
B and C: Retailers reported...because of...
Here, it would be incorrect for a subject and verb to follow because of, since a preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.

Yes, absolutely.
Actually,my point was that a CLAUSE that follows because can't be PARALLEL to because of prepositional structure.

Am I correct ?

RBBmba@2014 wrote:

GMATGuruNY wrote:

RBBmba@2014 wrote:1. Isn't it another potential ERROR in BOTH B and C -- NO main VERB in the underlined BECAUSE clause. (BUT the second BECAUSE clause does contain the main VERB, so it's clearly a PARALLELISM issue)

because of is a PREPOSITION.
A preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.
B and C: Retailers reported...because of...
Here, it would be incorrect for a subject and verb to follow because of, since a preposition cannot serve to introduce a clause.

Yes, absolutely.
Actually,my point was that a CLAUSE that follows because can't be PARALLEL to because of prepositional structure.

Am I correct ?

because + CLAUSE can be parallel with a NON-CLAUSE modifier.
SC24 in the OG for Verbal 2E:
In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding, partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
Here, the portion in red (a NON-CLAUSE modifier) is parallel with the portion in blue (because + CLAUSE).