Retailers reported moderate gains

[Guest]

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

Is it ok to use past perfect when it is already mentioned "a year earlier", which shows something is done before in time? Can anyone explain it? Thanks in advance.

[esledge]

Please cite the source (author) of this problem. We cannot reply until then. If no source is cited, we will have to delete the question just to be sure we are not violating someone else's copyright. Thanks!

[Kiran]

This is a GMATPrep question. I reached this post while searching for explanation for OA answers on GMATPrep parctice test.

[RonPurewal]

Is it ok to use past perfect when it is already mentioned "a year earlier", which shows something is done before in time? Can anyone explain it? Thanks in advance.

yes.

as long as there's something to serve as the second past time marker - to which the action referenced in the past perfect is relevant - you can use the past perfect.

another example:
at the beginning of the 1991 track season, the world record in the men's long jump had stood for almost 23 years.

the correct answer to this problem is (d).

--

incidentally, you can knock out all of (a), (b), and (c) for the same reason: the disallowed construction "because of NOUN VERBing".
see this post.
easy pickings if you know you can kill that particular structure.

[JonathanSchneider]

:)

[montz1]

I could knock off a,b,c but I was confused between D and E and chose E because there were two 'because' in D which somehow didn't seem right.

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.

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

Thanks a lot.

[devneeetbajaj]

Difference bween D and E is the correct use of past perfect in D, versus simple past in E.

[gmatprep14]

incidentally, you can knock out all of (a), (b), and (c) for the same reason: the disallowed construction "because of NOUN VERBing".
see this post.
easy pickings if you know you can kill that particular structure.

Hi Ron

Not able to see the post you have mentioned above ,please post again

i just checked the link; it works.

[RonPurewal]

I could knock off a,b,c but I was confused between D and E and chose E because there were two 'because' in D which somehow didn't seem right.

"as much ... as ..." is a parallel structure. therefore, the presence of "because" in both parts signals valid parallelism. it's actually a very good thing.

parallelism is probably the single most common type of error in the entire SC section, so you should probably start there if you don't understand how parallelism works.

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.

that's exactly right... so what's not clear to you? it looks like you just gave a nice concise summary of exactly what the sentence means.

[RonPurewal]

Difference bween D and E is the correct use of past perfect in D, versus simple past in E.

that's true, but there are two other problems with (e) that are much easier to discern:
* improper parallelism (as much because X as that Y)
* "as bad as" sets up a comparison, which doesn't have a second half in this case (you can't just say "as bad" by itself; you have to mention ... as bad as what else. by contrast, "so bad" can be used by itself, as it is in the correct answer here; "so ADJ" is not a comparison.)

[patil.ambar]

I came across the same structure in OG12 # 83.

(C) a phenomenon occurring not just because of
drugs that are becoming more expensive but
because of doctors having also written

Can we eliminate this based on because + of + noun + verbing ?

[RonPurewal]

I came across the same structure in OG12 # 83.

(C) a phenomenon occurring not just because of
drugs that are becoming more expensive but
because of doctors having also written

Can we eliminate this based on because + of + noun + verbing ?

that's not actually "of + noun + verbing" -- you're forgetting the "that are" in there -- but, yes, it can be eliminated for very similar reasons.

[vijay19839]

Hello MGMAT instructors,

Below is the right option D. Can someone please elaborate on what role
the below highlighted part plays to the original sentence?

Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.


Thanks
Vijay

[jlucero]

The bolded portion is an aside that gives a reason for the main clause (why retailers gained moderate gains in November sales). They use an awkward construction that follows:

Sales in November increased.
Sales in November increased because of X.
Sales in November increased because of X and Y.
Sales in November increased, as much because Y as because X.

[divineacclivity]

"so" in answer choice D sounded off to me.
e.g. I called an off for the day because I was so ill.
"I was so ill" - sounds in complete as if someone would say something like "I was so ill that I couldn't ..."

Please help me understand. thanks in advance.

Infrequent doesn't mean incorrect. Your example is perfectly acceptable as "so" modifies ill. How ill were you? So ill that you called off work.