Sentence Correction

Retail stores of the same type often succeed despite the fact that they are clustered next to each other; one reason is suggested by the behavior of consumers, who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(A) Retail stores of the same type often succeed despite the fact that they are clustered next to each other; one reason is suggested by the behavior of consumers, who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(B) If clustered next to each other, one reason that retail stores of the same type succeed is suggested by the behavior of consumers, who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(C) If clustered next to each other, one reason that retail stores of the same type succeed is suggested by consumers who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than those who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(D) The fact that there are consumers who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores is suggestive of one reason, if clustered next to each other, retail stores can succeed.

(E) The fact that there are consumers who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores suggests one reason retail stores can succeed despite being clustered next to each other.

A

gmat1011 wrote:
Retail stores of the same type often succeed despite the fact that they are clustered next to each other; one reason is suggested by the behavior of consumers, who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(A) Retail stores of the same type often succeed despite the fact that they are clustered next to each other; one reason is suggested by the behavior of consumers, who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores.

(D) suggestive of one reason, if clustered next to each other, retail stores can succeed.

(E) The fact that there are consumers who would rather shop in an area in which comparisons between products can be made at several stores than in an area in which comparisons can be made at only one or two stores suggests one reason retail stores can succeed despite being clustered next to each other.

Misplaced Modifiers in B,C .If clustered next to each other modifies one reason .
D reverses the cause-effect relationship. It states that if clustered next to each other, retail stores can succeed is the reason .

E can be eliminated because it has "being " i have seen many BTG users eliminating Choices that have "Being "

Hey A seems wrongs because the reason cant be suggested by the behaviour
So E but it still uses Being

Hi Munda Singh - yup. You are correct!

E can be eliminated because it has "being " i have seen many BTG users eliminating Choices that have "Being "

Just a quick note on this - be really careful in eliminating a choice just for the presence of "being". While it's true that quite a few GMAT answer choices incorrectly use "being", "being" isn't a nonsensical word like "ain't" - it does have proper usage! And the GMAT authors are pretty leery of gimmicky shortcuts that too many people use, so it's pretty likely that many of you will encounter a sentence that uses "being" correctly.

"Being" is just a form of the verb "to be", so you could correctly say that "my boss is being a jerk" or "Despite being only 13, Freddy Adu is already considered the best striker in the US."

"Being" just happens to have quite a few incorrect usages on the GMAT. "Being" is predominantly used as a temporary state of being (e.g. "my car is being fixed" shows a current state), so many GMAT questions will incorrectly use "being" for a permanent condition. For example: "The founders being Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google...". That's wrong - they're not currently being the founders, they just are, so you'd have to say something like "Founded by Sergey and Larry, Google..."


So...with "being":

1) Try to eliminate it for a deeper reason than just its mere presence. Ask yourself if you can definitely eliminate it due to verb tense, incorrect modifier status, etc.

2) If you're down to two and have no other justification than "one uses being", use it as a last tool to decide (after all, based on its usage in the OG and other official GMAT question banks it is wrong a whole lot more than it's right).

BUT don't use it as your first decision point - the GMAT knows that it's a "lazy" way for many of us to eliminate answer choices, so it is likely to throw some correct usages of "being" out there to keep the difficulty of the test high and to reward those who solve problems a little bit more analytically.