Hey All,

Looks like there's a bit of confusion on this one, so I thought I'd jump in.

"As rare as something becomes, be it a baseball card or a musical recording or a postage stamp, the more avidly it is sought by collectors."

The preposition "as" has a lot of uses, but they are not infinite.

We can use it to express something about time: "As the world turns, everybody gets older." We can use it for expressing equivalency between two things: "I am as strong as you are." We can also use it to compare clauses "Just as swimming is good exercise, so is croquet."

Finally, the example that comes closest to this question, is the use of "as" to set up a contrast: "As much as I like Dave, I can't stand to hang out with his girlfriend." In this version, the first clause is set up as a contrast with the second.

None of these match up with this sentence. A reword could get us the first example I used, "As something becomes more rare, it becomes more valuable." But that's not how they wrote it.

The issue here is one of parallelism/contrast. The best way to write this sentence is to have a correct parallel to "the more avidly it is sought". "As rare" doesn't match at all. "The rarer something becomes" matches perfectly. Both have a comparative ("more avidly" and "rarer), followed by a verb. Watch:

The more avidly it is sought
The rarer something becomes

(A) As rare as something becomes, be it
PROBLEM: See above.

(B) As rare as something becomes, whether it is
PROBLEM: See above.

(C) As something becomes rarer and rarer, like
PROBLEM: "Like" is used to compare nouns, "such as" gives examples. We definitely couldn't use like here, because there's no noun in the first clause to actually compare it to (aside from "something", but how can you compare to "something"?).

(D) The rarer something becomes, like
PROBLEM: Same as in C.

(E) The rarer something becomes, whether it is
ANSWER

Hope that helps!

-tommy

D & E are the only choices that use the correct structure--"The more x, the more y." Note that "rarer" is the same as "more rare." Thus we can say or "The more I learn about this issue, the more upset I become" or "The darker it gets, the more afraid I become."

D is incorrect because "like" is not used to introduce examples. We can only use "like" to say that one noun is like another noun. Therefore we are left with E.
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This calls paralleled comparison: the more adj (or comparative adj) + clause, the more adj (or comparative adj) + clause.

In this way, only choice (D) and (E) follows this rule: the rarer...., the more avidly.... Between (D) and (E), whether makes the sentence becomes better in the meaning term. "like" in choice (D) cannot be used as the opening term of introducing the examples.
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"like" should not be used to enumerate. Eliminate C and D.
"whether it is" is correct. Eliminate A.
"the rarer something becomes" is correct as it shows movement of becoming more rare "rarer" which is the intended meaning of the sentence: the rarer, the more avidly it is sought...

Answer: E

As rare as something becomes, be it a baseball card or a musical recording or a postage stamp, the more avidly it is sought by collectors.

(A) As rare as something becomes, be it

(B) As rare as something becomes, whether it is

(C) As something becomes rarer and rarer, like

(D) The rarer something becomes, like

(E) The rarer something becomes, whether it is

C and D are out for using 'like' which is used for comparison. But function of comparison is done by the sentence structure itself. D, may be, is redundant with C being little wordy.
Comparing three option A & B alike and E, E is better for the reason that its structure is better than A & B - the X'er(more X), the more Y...
Besides if we write A as
'The more avidly it is sought by collectors, as rare as something becomes, be it....' the two different colored text don't stand either in parallelism or comparison.
Similarly, in option B
The more avidly it is sought by collectors, as rare as something becomes, whether it is...' the text are not parallel.

Answer E is correct.
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Since when is 'whether' used to introduce a list of examples?
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chrtpmdr Exactly, I was thinking the same.
As far as I know, it can be only used with two possibilities.

There's nothing in the word "whether" that restricts it to two choices. It is simply used to indicate a distinction among any number of choices. It's simply that when we use it before *one* choice ("I want to know whether you're joining the club"), a yes/no binary is implied. That's why the GMAT considers "whether or not" redundant, even though this usage is very common in everyday English.
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