Traitorous colleagues

[singhsa]

Framed by traitorous colleagues, Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before there was exoneration and his freedom.

(A) there was exoneration and his freedom
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom
(C) being exonerated and freed
(D) exoneration and his freedom
(E) being freed, having been exonerated

OA - C

What's the rule with being.....are'nt they supposed to be incorrect in gmatland ?

[mundasingh123]

Framed by traitorous colleagues, Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before there was exoneration and his freedom.

(A) there was exoneration and his freedom
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom
(C) being exonerated and freed
(D) exoneration and his freedom
(E) being freed, having been exonerated

OA - C

What's the rule with being.....are'nt they supposed to be incorrect in gmatland ?

Its the best among all options under consideration.
In A , D, its unclear who was exonerated
E is too wordy.
Also it conveys that the guy was exonerated before he was imprisoned .
B) I dont have a clear reason for eliminating this.It doesnt seem to make sense.

[hitmis]

imo C, (B) cannot be right as you cannot exonerate someone 'with' freedom. For. e.g. He was exonerated from the accusation of being a thief.

[arpita@gurome]

Framed by traitorous colleagues, Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before there was exoneration and his freedom.

(A) there was exoneration and his freedom
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom
(C) being exonerated and freed
(D) exoneration and his freedom
(E) being freed, having been exonerated

OA - C

What's the rule with being.....are'nt they supposed to be incorrect in gmatland ?

Since this is small underline type SC, we can try to prephrase and if that does not work eliminate answers using grammar errors.

My prephrase was - he was exonerated and freed

None of the choices except C had this as an option, as pointed out in posts above, GMAT does not prefer "being" but that does not rule out the choice. Hence, the idea now becomes to look at other choices to figure out if any one of them is better than C.

A - is wordy. It is also not parallel.
B - exonerate is to clear of an accusation. It is not done with "freedom".
D - not parallel
E - changes the meaning - he was exonerated but still in prison for 12 years.

Hence pick C.

Hope this helps!

Remember the GMAT is testing logic and analytics in questions not just grammar rules.