There are a lot of issues tested in this problem: IDIOMS, COMPARISON language, VERB constructs, and SEMICOLONS.
Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the rules in favor of clients; auditors may, for instance, allow a questionable loan to remain on the books in order to maintain a bank's profits on paper.
(A) clients; auditors may, for instance, allow
Correct! Proper semicolon usage and idiomatic comparison structure.
(B) clients, as an instance, to allow
- "As an instance" is not idiomatic. One could say either "for instance" or "as an example."
- The usage of the infinitive "to allow" is also not quite right (some grammarians might argue that it's technically correct, but certainly not stylistically preferable). The infinitive often implies INTENTION. We can think of substituting "IN ORDER TO allow." This would change the meaning of the sentence.
(C) clients, like to allow
- same issue with "to allow
- the usage of "like" is not correct here. If we're providing further explanation of what was meant by "bend the rules," we need to say "for example." We can't use "like," which is properly used for similarities: "these things, like other things..."
- the placement of "like" also seems to be modifying "clients" rather than "rules."
(D) clients, such as to be allowing
- the placement of "such as" next to "clients" again suggests that we're about to create a list of examples of clients.
- "to be allowing" is unnecessary. I can't think of an example in which the infinitive progressive ("to be ____-ing") would ever be the most correct verb form. There's rarely need to say "I want to be eating" (in this EXACT moment) rather than "I want to eat" (generally) unless you're talking about a hypothetical condition in the exact present moment. That probably won't happen on the GMAT.
(E) clients; which might, as an instance, be the allowing of
- a semicolon must always separate two independent clauses, but the "which" here sets up a dependent clause.
- "as an instance" - same issue as in B
- We almost never use gerunds like "the allowing" if there is another noun form of the verb - in this case, "allowance." We don't say "the exploding" because we can say "the explosion." We only use the gerund when there is no other noun form for the action: "the cooking," etc.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
