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og 11

by thegmatbeater » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:50 am
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


Altough the question was discussed in forum, the explanations are not satisfying, can anybody explain it in a detailed way?
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Re: og 11

by wonder » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:15 am
thegmatbeater 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


Altough the question was discussed in forum, the explanations are not satisfying, can anybody explain it in a detailed way?
imo D
this question is testing parallel structures. 'as much because X as because Y' is the correct form. Only D (in my opinion) is correct in this form...also 'so' is the intensifier here for 'bad' so it should not be confused for any idiom structure

Also, a/b/c are using 'because of'. Now i personally think that, for eg, it happened because he went to onsite is better than it happened because of him going to onsite. right?

Out of d/e, e is again using 'sales of a year'...so we are left with D
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by crackgmat007 » Sun May 31, 2009 7:22 pm
can 'so' be used as an intensifier? I read that 'very' is an appropriate intensifier. Thoughts pls!
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by pkw209 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:49 pm
:)
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by Tommy Wallach » Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:21 pm
Hey All,

You seem to be nailing this one down, but I thought I'd add a few more details of interest.

First of all, yes "so" can be used as an intensifier, but an intensifier that sets up another clause. In other words, you wouldn't have a GMAT sentence that said, "The business is running so well." For that type of sentence, you'd want the word "cery", as was suggested.

"So" can only be used with another clause, for example:

"The business is running so well that they are going to hire 12 more employees in March." See how the "so" sets up the relative clause beginning with "that"?

In this sentence, it's a little more difficult to see, because the order of the clauses has been reversed. Think of it this way:

"Because their sales had been so bad, retailers reported moderate gains in their November sails." The "so" clause sets up the reporting clause. This is far preferable to "Because their sales had been very bad, retailers reported...". Hopefully, this is clearer.

Finally, Wonder mentioned that "because he went" is better than "because of him going". It's important to note that the latter phrase is wrong. You would have to say "because of HIS going". That's a possessive pronoun modifying the NOUN "going..." (as in "his leaving the company because of pay cuts was premature"). HIM wouldn't work there.

Hope that helps!
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by varundaga05 » Sat Jun 26, 2010 6:39 am
Hi Tommy

So are you saying

In GMAT

we should avoid because of whenever we see that in options
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by Tommy Wallach » Sat Jun 26, 2010 9:58 am
Hey Varun,

I wouldn't generalize outwards about "because of". You could say "Because of the extreme weather conditions above Texas, the plane was diverted". It's also worth noting that, in the wrong answer here, it doesn't say "because of". It says "Because their sales had been very bad..." The problem is the lack of "so", when we're trying to explain how the first clause IS RESPONSIBLE for the second clause.

Hope that helps!

-tommy
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by paes » Mon Jun 28, 2010 5:27 am
Hi Tommy,

May be I am not able to understand what the sentence is trying to say. Can you please explain.

D has 'as much because X as because Y'. So, the retailers reported moderate gains in November sales because of two reasons - X and Y. Am I right? But with this the meaning of the sentence is not clear to me.
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by pradeepkaushal9518 » Mon Jun 28, 2010 6:00 am
i have choosen D one action in past perfect and other in simple past
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by kvcpk » Mon Jun 28, 2010 6:47 am
Tommy Wallach wrote:Hey Varun,

I wouldn't generalize outwards about "because of". You could say "Because of the extreme weather conditions above Texas, the plane was diverted". It's also worth noting that, in the wrong answer here, it doesn't say "because of". It says "Because their sales had been very bad..." The problem is the lack of "so", when we're trying to explain how the first clause IS RESPONSIBLE for the second clause.

Hope that helps!

-tommy
Tom - I am confused here. can you tell me what is wrong with this statement:

Because Jim couldnt score the pass mark, John jumped into river.
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by hardik.jadeja » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:26 am
kvcpk wrote: Tom - I am confused here. can you tell me what is wrong with this statement:

Because Jim couldnt score the pass mark, John jumped into river.
The above sentence is correct. Its not that we need so in every sentence that has because.

Here's what I think. I am not sure I'll be able to explain it very well but I'll give it a try.

Because their sales had been very bad, retailers reported moderate gains in their November sails.

Because their sales had been so bad, retailers reported moderate gains in their November sails.

The reason why the second sentence is preferred over the first one is that retailers reported moderate gains because of the degree to which the sales had been bad. We need to show the intensity of how bad the sales were in the first clause and that is done in a better way in the second sentence.

Because Jim's marks were so low, John jumped into river.

I have modified your sentence. Notice that now John jumped into the river because of the degree to which Jim's result was bad. Maybe, if Jim would have scored few more marks(but still bad result), then, who knows, John might have dropped the idea of jumping into the river.

Hope that helps..
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by ansumania » Mon Jun 28, 2010 11:05 pm
Tommy Wallach wrote:Hey Varun,

I wouldn't generalize outwards about "because of". You could say "Because of the extreme weather conditions above Texas, the plane was diverted". It's also worth noting that, in the wrong answer here, it doesn't say "because of". It says "Because their sales had been very bad..." The problem is the lack of "so", when we're trying to explain how the first clause IS RESPONSIBLE for the second clause.

Hope that helps!

-tommy
Tommy,

which one, according to you, is the correct answer then?
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by sumanr84 » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:59 am
thegmatbeater 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


Altough the question was discussed in forum, the explanations are not satisfying, can anybody explain it in a detailed way?
I Choose D as this is the only option with ||ism and set properly on the IDIOM. As much X .....as Y

"...as much because.........as because ... "

B and C with similar construction are pretty awkward.
B. having been as bad as - Awkward
C. being as bad as - Awkward

Is it correct ?
I am on a break !!
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by Tommy Wallach » Thu Jul 08, 2010 9:51 am
Hey All,

Sorry to be MIA for so long. The answer is definitely D. We don't use "of" after because in this way. We could say "Because of the terrible weather, I'll be late." But we can't say "I went to his house because of he was there." We'd just say "I went to his house because he was there."

This sentence is an example of the latter situation, in which we don't want "of". Then we don't want "as bad as that" because it screws up the parallel (because, because).

Hope that helps!

-t
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by pharmxanthan » Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:03 pm
Tommy Wallach wrote:
Finally, Wonder mentioned that "because he went" is better than "because of him going". It's important to note that the latter phrase is wrong. You would have to say "because of HIS going". That's a possessive pronoun modifying the NOUN "going..." (as in "his leaving the company because of pay cuts was premature"). HIM wouldn't work there.

Hope that helps!
Hi Tommy,

a) Is the use of NOUN VERBing always wrong in GMAT?
b) Why is the use of past perfect in choice D correct? Is it because of "a year earlier"?

Thanks!
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