For smaller retailers and Web sites, which pay regular mail

A. which pay regular mail rates and may be shipping from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must
B. that pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must
C. who pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly so affordable and it often must
D. which pays regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not as nearly affordable and often must
E. which pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must


who - for people, which - for things
that - no comma needed

E for parallelism, correct usage of non essential "which" after comma and elimiation of ambiguous "it"

I think C and E have the same latter parts excepted the that and which.
If use "which" it will refer to Websites only?
and I think that is more preferable because that clause is necessary.
https://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive ... chthat.htm

Choice E is the correct choice, and I agree with the guys' reasoning above. Thank for your contribution.
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A different stroke:

Let me reason why which and who cannot be used here in this context. You cannot leave out retailers from the website because regular mail rates and shipping from one location are common to both. But which cannot refer to retailers and who cannot refer to
websites. But ‘that’ is used for both people and things as per general grammar. So B would be the choice by necessity. I feel that this is the sly pitfall of this topic.
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Hi Daagh
As far as I have read "that and which" refer/modify either objects or groups, whereas "who" refers/modify only people. "Those" can be used for both the people and things.
Your statement took me by surprise. Can you throw some light on the same.

Thanks in advance

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Hi getgyan

I do see your point. For the same reason, I request you to kindly read my posting in an another thread in this same forum (incidentally that is also yours) < there-is-a-big-difference-between-government-agents-scanning-140347.html

I quote my posting thereof

Please look at this note below in the given link. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/who

The relevant portion says this much about the use of ‘that and who’



My comment on the above



So, now you may see why I preferred an answer choice that uses the neutral “that”, in the given circumstances. This is my view, of course, contradictable by one or two concrete examples from GMAT in which they have preferred not to use ‘that” in an ambiguous situation such as this.
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I went for E.

However, the point raised by daagh is interesting. I was also confused between "who" and "which" as both retailers and websites are subject here.
According to MGMAT "which" can only modify things while "who" can only modify people. Hence "that" fits the bill. The only problem with B is that is that the non-underlined part has a comma.

Can someone else throw some more light on this?

BTW, I think C has a problem that nobody has highlighted - it uses "so affordable" which is clearly incorrect.

I also have the same question as IndianExpress.
Can somebody please answer this.

For smaller retailers and Web sites, which pay regular mail rates and may be shipping from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must be added into prices

A. which pay regular mail rates and may be shipping from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must
B. that pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must
C. who pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly so affordable and it often must
D. which pays regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not as nearly affordable and often must
E. which pay regular mail rates and may ship from only one location, free shipping is not nearly as affordable and often must´



between B and E that and which is the difference but gmat will never ask question with the main difference to be which and that.

still not convinced of the usage "as affordable" as affordable as for other websites? the comparison is not clear...
neither C has a good comparison... so affordable that - it this case, it would have been correct...

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