Of all my friends, Richard is the person who is the closest to me despite the fact that he is sometimes hot tempered, with a tendency for mood swings.

A) Of all my friends, Richard is the person who is the closest to me despite the fact that he is sometimes hot tempered, with a tendency for mood swings [Not Parallel]
B) Richard, of all my friends, is the person closest to me despite being sometimes hot tempered as well as having a tendency for mood swings [Correct]
C) Of all my friends, Richard is the person that is closest to me although he is sometimes hot tempered along with having a tendency for mood swings [wrong usage of along with]
D) Richard, of all my friends, is the closest person to me despite the fact that he is sometimes hot tempered and has a tendency for mood swings [Correct phrase would be 'the person closest to me' and not the 'closest person'.]
E) Richard, of all my friends, is the person who is the closest to me despite being sometimes hot tempered as well as having a tendency for mood swings [Wordy compared to B]

A is somewhat redundant with " the person who is" ( because we already have "of all my friends" . Besides, i remember Paul said that using preposition in the closure of a sentence is not favored --> A is out.

I cross B right away coz of the usage of "being" which is not favored in GMATland.

" closest to " in C must be " the closest to" --> C is out.

D looks fine.

E. Again, the usage of "being" .

D it is.

"D" it is.

Paul, thanks for the treat, please correct me if I've missed anything in the post mortem!


A) Of all my friends, Richard is the person who is the closest to me despite the fact that he is sometimes hot tempered, with a tendency for mood swings
>> "who is" is not needed. "with tendency..." doesn't sound good.

B) Richard, of all my friends, is the person closest to me despite being sometimes hot tempered as well as having a tendency for mood swings
>> I think this has reference problem. Who is hot tempred? Who has mood swings? Also, "as well as" usage may not be correct here.

C) Of all my friends, Richard is the person that is closest to me although he is sometimes hot tempered along with having a tendency for mood swings
>> "that" usageis wrong, "who" is better, still will be wordy. "along with having" sounds awkward

D) Richard, of all my friends, is the closest person to me despite the fact that he is sometimes hot tempered and has a tendency for mood swings
>> Good! Has clear references. "the closest person to me", "he is sometimes X & he has Y"

E) Richard, of all my friends, is the person who is the closest to me despite being sometimes hot tempered as well as having a tendency for mood swings
>> Wordy again.

A. "with a tendency for mood swings" not correct as you said in your earlier post that its a breach of grammatical etiquette.
B and C are are totaly unidiomatic expression with "being and having". "that" in C is totally unacceptable.
D.
E. is same as B and C.

finally "Of all my friends, Richard is the closest person........." is better than "Richard, of all my friends, is the closest person.........".

at the same time, the gmat tests what the best is among the available not what would be the best among the unavailable.

So the question is ok..

Between A and D, I would go with A.

In D, " is the closest person to me" doesn't seem right.

OA is B
A) awkwardly ends with a prepositional phrase and is wordy with the introduction of relative clause "who"
B) "as well as" can be used as a conjunction or a preposition. When used as a preposition, it is indeed a parenthetical element and the following verb should be singular
eg Mike, as well as Ron, is the best person for the challenge.
The above gives an example of the use of "as well as" as a preposition. In the original question, "as well as" is used as a conjunction and can be used in the same terms as "and"
C) again, wordy with the introduction of restrictive clause "that". "along with" is also wrong usage
D) "despite the fact that" is redundant and hence wordy. You can see that redundancy here: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ ... redundancy
"despite being" in B is more concise.
E) again, "who" clause is wordy

Whether we put "person closest to me" or "closest person to me" is about semantics. While in the former, the emphasis is on the closeness of the relationship, the latter is more about "the closest person" himself.

As for the use of "being", most people would agree that it is most commonly wrong in GMAT world but in this case it is not. This is because of (1) the redundancy in D which I previously explained and (2) "despite" is usually followed by a gerund phrase (-ing).
eg Despite being so tall, Sue wears small size shoes
You can see an example here where "being" is properly used in "despite being offered $1,000 to do so" http://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... +lindbergh

For more information on the use of being, you can read Erin's post here: http://www.sentencecorrection.com/forum ... wtopic=323
_________________

Best Regards,

Paul

Wow

I think I was at that time......

SHOCK

Got it now

but that "being" would confuse me for sure!!