Appearing to be the only candidate whose views would be acceptable to its membership, the Youth Canorous finally endorsed Gorge for city council.

(A) Appearing to be
(B) Seeming to be
(C) Because he appeared to be
(D) Because he seemed
(E) Being

Although, i got this one wrong but this was not a very difficult question if one could catch the OM thing pointed out by gmatisnothard.

That was a good point.
I had chosen E --> Being is not always wrong on GMAT, but here it definitely is.

OA has to be from C/D..



Thanks

Though I agree with you that E seems to be modifying George and NOT the Youth Caorous, isn't choice C wordy?

before a NOUN or a PARTICIPIAL construction, you must use "to be".
he appeared/seemed to be lying. --> correct
*he appeared/seemed lying. --> incorrect
he appeared/seemed to be a liar. --> correct
*he appeared/seemed a liar. --> incorrect

before an ADJECTIVE, you don't have to use "to be" (but you still can).
the report appears/seems credible. --> correct
the report appears/seems to be credible. --> also correct


Hope this Helps.
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GGG (Gym / GMAT / Girl) -- Be Serious

Its your duty to post OA afterwards; some one must be waiting for that...

A, B and E are out as the modifiers seem to be incorrectly modifying YC.

D is wrong as the correct idiom is 'seem to be'

C it is.

A, B and E are out bcoz the modifiers, appearing to be, seeming to be and being ..are incorrectly modifying youth Canorous and not George.
C and D .. D has an idiom error.. Seem/(ed) to be is coorect.

Hence C.

The main issue is Modifier .
we need verb modifier to modify why George was endorsed ?
A,B ,and E is present participle functioning as Noun modifier (all modifying youth Canorous )
Then we left with C and D
D- seem to/That or an if .....only construction. idiomatic problem
C is winner

Prateek176 - the issue comes down to the pronouns he and its. We have to reason backwards a bit.

That is, from the non-underlined part of the sentence we know that Gorge is the political candidate. Gorge cannot be an it.

We also have the pronoun "its," which needs a referent. That referent cannot be the Gorge the human candidate. The Youth Canorous is the only other possibile referent for "its."

Its as a possessive pronoun implies it as a personal pronoun. The Y.C. is the "it."

C and D contain the personal pronoun "he."

In addition, from context, the Youth Canorous is almost certainly a group.

How do we know that THE Youth Canorous is a group (or organization or the like)?

First, the word "the" indicates the title of a group or organization, not a proper name of a person. In English, proper names of average persons do not contain the word "the" (stage names such as Chance The Rapper or The Notorious B.I.G. don't count as proper names).

There are names such as "the Chairperson," or "the Pope." But we have only two contenders that are referents for the pronouns. One of them, Gorge, is a person running for political office. That person is a he.

The other noun has a name that is not known as a person.

Second, elaborating on the analysis above, the possessive pronoun "its" MUST refer to some noun, and cannot refer to the human political candidate Gorge. "Its" must refer to the Youth Canorous, which is therefore an "it," not a "he" per C and D.

Third, "membership" is a cue that the Youth Canorous is a group. That is, "acceptable to its membership" means "acceptable to the members of _____." People cannot be members of a "he."

Sometimes rearranging the sentence helps.

The Youth Canorous finally endorsed GORGE for city council . . . ___ seemed or appeared to be the only candidate whose views would be acceptable to ITS membership.

In the part of the original sentence that is not underlined, Gorge is the candidate who gets endorsed. A candidate cannot be an "it."

In addition, we have "its" membership. Its implies it and both can go only with the remaining pertinent noun: the Y.C. "Its" turns out to be the strongest reason that the Y.C. cannot be a "he" per C and D.

I wonder whether unfamiliar names confused you? As you can see from the stats, this question is hard. (The referent "Gorge" is far away from the pronoun AND the pronoun precedes the noun. Those two qualities are both okay in SC, but they make sentence correction more difficult.)

Hope that helps.
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In the depths of winter, I finally learned
that within me there lay an invincible summer.
-- Albert Camus, "Return to Tipasa"