This is one of the OG questions that causes the most trouble, partly because a lot of GMAT test-takers have an (occasionally incorrect) impulse to automatically eliminate any answer choice with the word "being."

But we'll get to that. Let's take these buggers in order:



That second "it" is the big problem here: "makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble..." I suppose that "it" could refer to "heavy commitment" or "course of action", but neither of those would make any sense. (A) is gone.



This is fairly subtle, but the subject doesn't make a whole lot of sense with the main verb here. "An executive... makes missing signs of incipient trouble... likely when they do appear." The pronoun "they" is OK, but it doesn't make logical sense to say that "an executive makes missing signs of trouble likely..." Also, I see no good reason use "ones" here -- in theory, "ones" would refer to very specific signs of trouble, and there's no good reason to use "ones" when a simple "them" would work. (B) is gone.



The "it" is a problem here: "it" generally refers to the nearest singular noun. In this case, "it" would seem to refer to "trouble," and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "Course of action" would work, but that's much farther back in the sentence.

To be fair, ambiguous pronouns aren't always wrong on the GMAT, so if you want to be conservative, you could keep (C) for now. But as we'll see in a moment, (E) is a much better option.



"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.



There are lots of pronoun issues in the other answer choices, but we're all good with (E): the ambiguous "it" we saw in (C) isn't here at all, and "them" and "they" very clearly refer to "signs of incipient trouble." The subject "being heavily committed to a course of action" works nicely with the main verb phrase ("is likely to make an executive miss signs of trouble..."), so (E) is an upgrade from (B).

That leaves "being" as the only reasonable objection to (E). But "being" is absolutely fine here: it's just a noun, also known as a gerund in this case. "Being" is no different than any other gerund. So (E) is our answer.

Please see last Monday's Topic of the Week for more on gerunds and other "-ing" words on the GMAT: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html.

i eliminated E , based on comma-subject rule. "Being heavily committed to a course of action, executives......" isn't this the correct form?

Can anyone please shed some light on this.

Hello,

Can anyone please correct my understanding regarding rule of modifier (with respect to this question), which is mentioned below,

Ing- modifer............, Subject/noun................
e.g. Being an american, i enjoyed a lot of privileges in canada.

So, as per modifier rule, option E was first to be ruled out.

Thanks in anticipation!

What if i think in the below way,,
Who is heavily committed to a course of action? Then, name of person should come immediately after the comma.

Even though being acts as gerund in this example, how can one identify it as gerund? (According to me, answer to the what question is gerund; e.g. Smoking is injurious to the health. -- What is injurious to the health ? Answer to the question is -ing form, so it's gerund.)

Thanks for prompt response.

But how can one easily identify that -ing form (at the very beginning of the sentence) works as a gerund or modifier??