Because of the erratic pattern of sales increases this year retailers

Analysis of all options is at the bottom of this post.


Option A: Because of the erratic pattern of sales increases this year,
retailers and analysts hesitate to predict five-year trends in retail sales during the months that have historically been the most profitable.


Hi cool16 ,

No, option A is not an exception.
(And +1 kudos for not "fighting" with the official answer.)

Option A does not have a clause with a subject and a verb after Because of.
The underlined words are a noun phrase (a noun + modifiers).
. . . the erratic pattern of sales increases [NOUN phrase] this year. . .

You got tripped up by "sales increases."
That phrase is a noun phrase.

The noun is increases.
-- The legislators proposed two tax rate increases: one on the sale of alcohol and one on the sale of legal marijuana.

The adjective is sales. (What kind of increases? Sales increases.)
-- Similar example: The sales figures for this year are surprisingly high.
-- True, "sales" is a often just a noun.
But sales can and does act as an adjective that describes increases. See below.

Sales and increases cannot be a subject and verb together.
Sales is plural and increases is singular.

• "SALES increases" - nouns that modify nouns

In English, we use nouns to modify nouns:
Spanish teacher
Sports car
Race horse
Corn bread

In the noun phrase sales increases, the noun increases is modified by the noun, sales, which acts as an adjective.
(What kind of increases? Sales increases.)

When a noun modifies another noun
(1) we can call the first noun a "noun-adjective" and
(2) the "noun-adjective" always comes before the noun that it modifies. No exceptions.

"Sales" is a noun-adjective.
GMAC is exploiting the fact that no good synonym exists for the noun increases in this context.
Sales rises? Not idiomatic. Sales spikes? Sales surges? Better, but a spike and surge indicate a radical increase, not just a "regular" increase.

In short, we realize that sales increases is a noun phrase because
(1) the two words cannot be subject/verb. Sales is plural. Increases is singular.
(2) sales increases follows the compound preposition because of.
-- prepositions must be followed by nouns or noun phrases
-- in English, one noun can act as an adjective that describes a subsequent noun.

• Introductory phrase structure?

Although the "because of" phrasing is not common in spoken English, that phrasing is fairly common in formal written English.

You correctly note that the compound preposition because of should be followed by a noun or noun phrase.
Because of is indeed followed by a noun phrase; that fact is just hard to see if we don't examine "sales increases" carefully.

That is, the introductory phrase is a compound preposition (Because of)
+
a noun phrase (the erratic pattern OF sales increases this year...)

As I note in my post below, here, we have two prepositions back to back:
because of [an erratic pattern]
and
of [sales increases this year]

More specifically, we have:

[compound preposition] + THE + [adjective] + [noun/direct object] + OF + [noun-adjective + noun] + [time adjective]

[Because of] + THE + [erratic] + [pattern] + OF + [sales + increases] + [this year]

Finally, to what time period does this pattern [of sales increases] belong?
This pattern belongs to this year
This year = adjective
Most of the time, a "when" phrase or word is an adverb.
When a time phrase modifies a noun, it is an adjective.
-- This November's daily temperatures are surprisingly high, especially compared to last November's daily temperatures .
-- In both instances, the phrase "this November's" is an adjective that modifies the noun temperatures, not the verbs are or compared.

This part of the question is hard. Just below I have indicated the errors in the other options.

Hope that helps.

************
PROCESS OF ELIMINATION

When in doubt, compare. Option A has no errors. The other four have clear errors.

Because of the erratic pattern of sales increases this year, retailers and analysts hesitate to predict five-year trends in retail sales during the months that have historically been the most profitable.

A) Because of the erratic pattern of sales increases this year, retailers and analysts hesitate to predict

B) With the erratic pattern of this year’s sales increases, retailers and analysts are hesitant in predicting:
GMAC does not like "with" to express causality. The meaning is strange and not clear: along with or together with the erratic pattern of sales increases, analysts are hesitant?
Finally, hesitant in predicting is not idiomatic. They are hesitant TO do something. They are hesitant TO predict trends.

C) This year, due to the erratic pattern of increasing sales, there is some hesitation among retailers and analysts in predicting
Especially compared to option A, option C is awkwardly phrased, unnecessarily passive, and wordy. No need exists for there is.The phrase some hesitation among . . . in predicting is cumbersome.
Finally, hesitation IN predicting is not idiomatic. There is hesitation TO predict.

D) The erratic pattern of sales increases have made retailers and analysts hesitate this year to predict
The singular subject pattern is not in agreement with the plural verb have.

E) This year’s erratic pattern of increasing sales have made retailers and analysts hesitate to predict - same S/V problem as that in D