Sentence Correction

Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to
pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge
(E) With water being the only exception

Can someone explain how to arrive at the correct response to this question
please?

Source: VeritasPrep
OA: C

gmatdriller wrote:Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to
pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge
(E) With water being the only exception

Can someone explain how to arrive at the correct response to this question
please?

Source: VeritasPrep
OA: C

The issues:

Unlike X, Y, where X and Y MUST be parallel. --> A is out.
Besides X, Y is also needed.--> Means Both X abd Y are needed. --> ELiminate B.
Not like water, passenger---Water Vs Passenger ---Eliminate D.
With water being the only exception.....AWakward and being is not correct. With X, Y--> Means Y has X. So, eliminate E.
[spoiler]Answer: C[/spoiler]

Unlike water, which is complimentary, all passengers will need to
pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight.

(A) Unlike water, which is complimentary
(B) Besides water, which is offered free of charge
(C) Unless the drink is water, which is complimentary
(D) Not like water, which is offered free of charge
(E) With water being the only exception

The construction "Unlike water, all passengers...." compares water to passengers, resulting in a comparison error.
Same problem with B, D and E. All three compare "water" to "all passengers"
The correct answer is C which keeps the meaning clear without introducing a comparison error.

This question is based on an actual gmat question available in the OG 10th Edition. The original question goes something like:
Unlike transplants between identical twins, all patients recieving translplants must take anti-rejection drugs.

This question also introduced a comparison error, comparing transplants with "all patients".

Hope this helps.

How is choice E comparing water to "all passengers"? If I rearrange the sentence, I get "all passengers will need to
pay cash for beverages during the transoceanic flight, with water being the only exception". Is that grammatically incorrect?

A major error with E is that it needlessly uses "being" (which we know GMAT generally doesn't prefer if the sentence works fine without it).

If I remove "being" from E, I get:
"With water the only exception, all passengers...... " which sounds pretty OK, unless one could find fault with using the construction "With water...., all passengers....". All passengers are definitely not "with water".

With so many issues working against it, seems like a good idea to knock off E.

This sentence is really tricky (as is the original on which this one is based).

Thanks, Salman. I did overlook the use of "being" which, as you pointed out, is generally frowned upon by GMAT writers.

Salman Ghaffar wrote:A major error with E is that it needlessly uses "being" (which we know GMAT generally doesn't prefer if the sentence works fine without it).

If I remove "being" from E, I get:
"With water the only exception, all passengers...... " which sounds pretty OK, unless one could find fault with using the construction "With water...., all passengers....". All passengers are definitely not "with water".

With so many issues working against it, seems like a good idea to knock off E.

This sentence is really tricky (as is the original on which this one is based).

This is one of my favorite questions to teach in the Veritas Sentence Correction 2. It is certainly based on an official question. Comparison errors are among the favorite errors of GMAT test writers.

I use this question to teach my "Use it or Lose it" modifier strategy.

What is the "Use it or Lose it" strategy? Basically a modifier is either misplaced and so therefore can be used to eliminate an answer choice or else it is not misplaced and we should ignore it. So we either "use" the modifier to eliminate (based on it being misplaced) or we "lose" it and evaluate the sentence without it.

In this case, the modifiers that are used repeatedly are "which is complimentary" in choices A and C and "which is offered free of charge" in choices B and D. E has no such modifier. Let's apply "use it or lose it" In choices A and C is the modifier misplaced? Ask yourself if water can be "offered free of charge." It can, so this is not misplaced. So ignore it. Now read answer choice A as "Unlike water... all passengers will need to pay cash." This is a comparison between water and passengers = incorrect.

Here is a tip: If you can replace one part of the comparison with something that is completely different and it makes more sense then what you have is a logical problem. That is one of the things that we emphasize at Veritas is the fact that many of the errors in sentence correction are errors of logic.

Let's try this with answer choice A. Right now we have "unlike water....all passengers will need to pay cash..." What if we replace water with something more appropriate? How about "employees." Would it make more sense? It would. Do you see that "unlike employees...all passengers will need to pay cash" makes more sense? This applies for choices B and D as well.

What about choice E? No need to rely on the "being" (I agree this is usually not correct!) instead see that if we replace the water with a proper name, such as "Jones" that this will make more sense. "With Jones being the only exception, all passengers need to pay cash..."

Remember that if you can replace one side of the comparison with something that is completely different and if that makes more sense then you likely have a comparison error!

Thanks guys for the great discussion on this problem!