Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
The intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before he was exonerated and freed.

Concepts tested here: Parallelism + Meaning + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Usage of “being” is justified, when it acts as a passive continuous verb (the case in Choice C here) or as part of a noun phrase; note, the use of the passive continuous tense must be justified in the context (as it is in choice C).
• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.
• The present perfect continuous tense (marked by “has/have been”) is used to refer to actions that started in the past and continue into the present.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “there was exoneration and his freedom”; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before the nouns “exoneration” and “freedom” existed in the abstract; the intended meaning is that Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before he was exonerated and freed.

B: Trap. This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “exonerated with freedom”; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the noun Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before he was exonerated alongside freedom; the intended meaning is that Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before he was exonerated and freed.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the phrase “before being exonerated and freed” to modify the action “was imprisoned for twelve years”, conveying the intended meaning - that Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before he was exonerated and freed. Further, Option C maintains parallelism between “exonerated” and “freed".

D: Trap. This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “exoneration" and "his freedom"; please remember that any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the present perfect continuous tense verb “having been exonerated” for an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the present perfect continuous tense (marked by “has/have been”) is only used to refer to actions that started in the past and continue into the present.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Continuous Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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It basically depends on how you interpret "before". If "before" is used as a preposition, it forms a prepositional phrase, which modifies the nearest noun. However, if "before" is used as a conjuction, it can have a proper clause or it can participial phase modiyfing the subject of the main sentence.


(A) there was exoneration and his freedom - "there" pronoun error.
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom - "was" is a form of "to be". We can't use both.
(C) being exonerated and freed - Correct
(D) exoneration and his freedom - "before exoneration .." is a prepositional phrase that modifies "years"
(E) being freed, having been exonerated - "having been" structure error.

Another C..

(A) there was exoneration and his freedom - awkward construction with 'there'...
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom - 'to be'
(C) being exonerated and freed - correct
(D) exoneration and his freedom - not parallel...
(E) being freed, having been exonerated - awkward construction

Whats the OA...also is this case 'being' is correct..whereas in most of the cases we seem to remove options which have being..Can anyone signify the importance of being..

Can you please explain:

before exoneration - is this correct?
before his freedom - this is incorrect as we need to define the instance and moment in here. Right?

Whenever i find a passive voice, i always look for options with active voice. Gmat rarely gives a correct choice with passive voice.

exoneration and "his freedom" both are passive, only C has active voice

Passive : The rabbit was eaten by the tiger.

Active : The tiger ate the rabbit.

Hope this was helpful

Really!

How "exoneration" and "his freedom" become passive was my question?
Both are nouns and contain no verb so how can they be considered as passive.

consider these:
1)They exonerated and freed him
2) He was exonerated and freed
3) There was his exoneration and freedom.

1 is obviously active, 2 is not when compared to 1, but 2 is relatively active compared to 3.
3 sounds very clumsy and awkward.

According to Manhattan, other things equal, choose verb over adjective over noun. Thus, C is clearly better than D

С

D is wrong.
Guys, my advice is read the MGMAT SC attentively!

Not all the nouns are parallel, Do not parallel concrete nouns (dog, flowers, region) with Action nouns (pollution, development, change, etc). Ex - WRONG : Continent and pollution are

in D, exoneration is an action noun , while freedom is a concrete noun - so D is not parallel.
in C both "being exonerated" and "freed" - are paralle, and both are states of being.
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1) "Having been exonerated, I went home"

Here with "having" - it has to modify a noun.

2) If you use it as a verb for "to be" as in "having been there, I can say this"

These are two use cases.

In the question above, it doesn't fit well with the sentence structure so E is not relevant.

IMO, Being when used as "state of a thing or person, feeling" then it's usage is correct. It can also be used as progressive tense.

Ex: Being head of family gives his authority to make financial decisions.

daagh Can you please explain the usage of "being" here?

As you have mentioned earlier
[url]--If we can realize the futility of using ‘being’ in such contexts, we have a safe way of dumping a few wrong choices in one stroke. In GMAT ‘being’ is acceptable only in cases where it is part of a noun phrase that acts as the subject or when it is part of a passive voice structure preceded by an auxiliary derivative of the base verb ‘be’ such as is, are, was or were etc. Whenever you see, ‘being’, ask what is being or who is being. If you get a positive answer, then ‘being’ is a modifier and that structure is unacceptable in GMAT.
.--[/url]


Is "being exonerated and freed" parallel to "was imprisoned" here? In that case there will be a valid sentence(and not a fragment) after because.
I.E. Framed by traitorous colleagues, Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned for twelve years before {Alfred Dreyfus was} being exonerated and freed.

.--[/url]


"before being exonerated " is a gerund(noun) and an object of the preposition 'before". Obviously we can see that it cannot be parallelle or equal to a verbed structure such as "was imprisoned'. While we can mention a gerund after a preposition, we cannot generally have a verbed predicate structure after the conjunction' 'before'.('before' is one of those words that can operate both as a preposition and a conjunction.
We have to have a subject such as 'Alfred' in front of the verb 'was exonerated).

The message here is that, 'being' as an object of preposition also is an acceptable form because it is also a form of noun but not a modifier as seen in this case.
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OA is C due to:

A) there was exoneration and his freedom ---- Too wordy and who was exonerated is not clear
(B) he was to be exonerated with freedom --- changes original meaning
(C) being exonerated and freed --- Correct answer
(D) exoneration and his freedom ---who exoneration??
(E) being freed, having been exonerated ----- unnecessarily making a core part into modifier

Could someone please breakdown option E? What role exactly is "having been exonerated" playing? Is it modifying "being freed"? Why is this option incorrect?

Also, how is this option different from option C in terms of the meaning? Option C seems to suggest that "exonerated" and "freed" happened at the same time; shouldn't these verbs be sequential, as conveyed by option E?

Can someone explain B in more details?

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