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

[spoiler]OA: Later[/spoiler]

Good question. IMO D

Having and Being are mostly wrong; so A,B,C are wrong. Also Because of +Noun + Ing is mostly wrong.
Between D and E; D properly uses Past perfect tense, In E, as bad as is used to compare two things; Here we are not comparing any thing, so adjective(bad) as would work fine to mention the reason behind a cause.

D is the right option.

incidentally, you can knock out all of (a), (b), and (c) for the same reason: the disallowed construction "because of NOUN VERBing".

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/ret ... t5149.html

gmat_perfect 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

[spoiler]OA: Later[/spoiler]

As because..... is coorect?