NandishSS wrote:
bkk145 wrote:
Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only.
A. in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
B. in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
E. department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball
HI
GMATNinja,
mikemcgarry,
egmat,
DmitryFarber,
MagooshExpert (Carolyn),
ccooley,
GMATGuruNY,
EducationAisle.
In C & D
these doesn't it refer to
Shoppers in sporting goods stores but not only
ShoppersIt might be helpful to do a little QOTD-style analysis to help clarify your confusion here.
Quote:
(A) in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
The word "unlike" indicates that we have a comparison, and it's clear from the context that we WANT to compare shoppers in sporting good stores to shoppers in department stores.
(A) illogically compares "
shoppers in sporting good stores" to the prepositional phrase "
in department stores." It doesn't make sense to compare "shoppers" to "in department stores, so (A) is gone.
Quote:
(B) in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
Same illogical comparison we saw in (A), so (B) is out.
Quote:
(C) those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
The conjunction "but" suggests a contrast or surprise. Here, not buying skis and a boomerang
and leaving with only a basketball are perfectly compatible actions, so it's illogical to connect these actions with "but."
Also, the actions "do very little impulse shopping" and "do not buy a pair of skis..." would make much more sense if they were connected by the word "and."
Either way, (C) is gone.
Quote:
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
NandishSS, this is where we finally address your question directly!
Notice that if the pronoun "those" referred to the entire noun phrase "shoppers in sporting good stores", then (D) would also be illogical, because we'd be comparing shoppers in sporting goods stores to
shoppers in sporting goods stores in department stores, and you'd have no correct answer! Any interpretation that leads to the elimination of all five options is clearly wrong.
We generally use the pronoun "those" to distinguish between two different groups. For instance, "the cupcakes with chocolate icing are more delicious than
those [cupcakes] with asparagus icing." Here there are two groups of cupcakes: ones with chocolate icing and ones with asparagus icing. The prepositional phrases indicating the type of icing are what allow us to differentiate between the two groups.
It's the same basic construction we have in (D). The prepositional phrases beginning with "in" serve to identify our two groups of shoppers. There are
the shoppers in sporting goods stores and
those [shoppers] in department stores. Perfectly logical.
So (D) looks okay.
Quote:
(E) department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball
This sentence illogically compares "shoppers in sporting good stores" to "department stores" so (E) is wrong too, and (D) is our winner.
I hope that helps!