![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/napoleon-150x150.gif\" "\\"napoleon\\"")
First, a practice GMAT Sentence Correction question:<\/p>\nFirst, a practice GMAT Sentence Correction question:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0Because of Elnath Industries posting\u00a0a second consecutive quarter of losses, its stocks tumbled 20% in the last three days.<\/p>\n
By itself, the word \"because\" is a\u00a0subordinate conjunction<\/strong>.\u00a0 What does that mean?\u00a0 It means, this word opens a\u00a0subordinate clause<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 A subordinate clause, like any clause,\u00a0must have<\/em>\u00a0a complete [noun] + [verb] structure within it, like a mini-sentence: in fact, if you drop the subordinate conjunction, the rest of the subordinate clause should be able to stand alone as a sentence.\u00a0 Furthermore, the fact that this clause is subordinate (i.e. dependent) means there must be another main, independent clause providing the meat-and-potatoes of the sentence.<\/p>\n The general outline of a sentence involving the word \"because\" might be:<\/p>\n \"Because\" + [sub. noun] + [sub. verb], [main noun] + [main verb].<\/p>\n Of course, all kinds of adjectives, adverbs, and other modifies can be added to this structure.\u00a0\u00a0 The [sub. noun] + [sub. verb] provide the structure of the subordinate clause --- and could stand on their own as a complete sentence.\u00a0 The sentence as a whole depends on the [main noun] + [main verb] as its core structure.\u00a0 For example,<\/p>\n 2) Because teenagers are insatiably hungry, their parents are always buying food.<\/p>\n Notice that the [noun] + [verb] within the subordinate clause, \"teenagers are insatiably hungry\", could work as its own sentence: that's a great trick to test a clause on the GMAT Sentence Correction.\u00a0 Nevertheless, in this context, \"their parents\" is the main subject and \"are \u2026 buying\" is the main verb.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The words \"because of\" is a preposition.\u00a0\u00a0 Prepositions are designed to be followed by only a noun ---- \"because of the rain\", \"because of the parade\", \"because of the child's temper tantrum\", etc.\u00a0\u00a0 The object of this or any preposition can be a\u00a0gerund<\/a>\u00a0or gerund phrase ---- \"because of waiting for the senator\", \"because of limited parking\", \"because of having eaten out every night this week\", etc.\u00a0 That last example is getting to the limit of how much\u00a0action<\/em>, how much\u00a0story<\/em>, the GMAT likes to pack inside a prepositional phrase.\u00a0 On the Sentence Correction, the GMAT is adamantly opposed to the following structure:<\/p>\n [preposition] + [noun] + [participle]<\/p>\n Even though this could be grammatically correct in a technical sentence, many would be likely to find this in poor taste, and for GMAT Sentence Correction purposes, this is 100% wrong.<\/p>\n Example \"Because of the President going to Myanmar \u2026\" = WRONG!<\/p>\n As far as the GMAT is concerned, this is just too much\u00a0action<\/em>, too much\u00a0story<\/em>, for a preposition to handle.\u00a0 If you are going to have both an action and the person\/agent performing the action, then what you need is a clause, not merely a prepositional phrase.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Having read this post, take another look at the practice sentence above before reading the explanation below.\u00a0\u00a0 Here's another practice Sentence Correction question involving this idiom:<\/p>\n 2)\u00a0https:\/\/gmat.magoosh.com\/questions\/1103<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1) We have an actor & an action, so a preposition is not enough: we need a full [noun] + [verb] clause, which means we need the subordinate conjunction \"because\".\u00a0 The first two, with the preposition \"because of\", are wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 Choice (C) involves the\u00a0missing verb mistake<\/a>\u00a0--- having a [noun] + [participle] in place of [noun] + [verb].\u00a0 Only (D) & (E) have \"because\" + [noun] + [verb].\u00a0\u00a0 Choice (E) involves a very strange tense: the past\u00a0perfect<\/a>\u00a0progressive<\/a>\u00a0--- this is not at all required by or appropriate to the context.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, the only possible correct answer is\u00a0(D)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This post was written by Mike McGarry, GMAT expert at Magoosh<\/a>, and originally posted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First, a practice GMAT Sentence Correction question: 1)\u00a0Because of Elnath Industries posting\u00a0a second consecutive quarter of losses, its stocks tumbled 20% in the last three days. Because of Elnath Industries…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,783,243,719,735],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-magoosh-blog","category-blog","category-sentence-correction-gmat","category-verbal-gmat-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15826,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15824\/revisions\/15826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Because of<\/h2>\n
Practice<\/h2>\n
Practice question explanation<\/h2>\n