In the textbook publishing business, the second quarter is historicall

Hi AndrewN DmitryFarber mcelroytutoring chetan2u

In the textbook publishing business, the second quarter is historically weak, because revenues are low and marketing expenses are high as companies prepare for the coming school year.
(A) low and marketing expenses are high as companies prepare
(D) low, while marketing expenses are higher to prepare

meaning wise I choose A
but structure wise: I choose D

My doubt is on this comma

Modifier , SUBJECT VERB , non essential modifier, WHILE SUBJECT VERB
In the textbook publishing business, the second quarter is historically weak, because revenues are low , while marketing expenses are higher to prepare for the coming school year.

Please clarify. Thanks! AndrewN DmitryFarber mcelroytutoring chetan2u

Hi Teitsuya,

One of the interesting aspects of SCs is that you sometimes don't need to know all of the grammar rules involved to define the correct answer.

In the opening, non-underlined part of this sentence, we see the phrase "the second quarter is historically weak, because " - so what follows will be some type of explanation for why that quarter is weak. While it might be just one reason, IF there's more than one reason, then we need to present those multiple reasons in PARALLEL format.

The first reason (and it's the same in all 5 answers) is "revenues are LOW...", so this establishes how a 2nd reason would need to be presented (re: ".... are high..."). Eliminate Answers C, D and E.

With the remaining 2 answers, Answer A gives us an actual noun that has revenues and expenses and would be preparing for the next year. Answer B gives us a vague plural pronoun (re: "they") which would refer back to "revenues" and/or "expenses" - because those are the only plural nouns in the sentence. Neither revenues nor expenses can 'prepare' for anything, so we can eliminate Answer B.

Final Answer:

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Thanks for quick clarification DmitryFarber

That comma before because make me think that this thought is not yet completed and something else yet to come that I found with while clause.
MY doubt is cleared after reading your post:)

Ah, I see but then we'd be comparing a weak quarter with higher marketing prices, and it's not clear what that would mean. We want both the things that follow to explain the weak quarter. Glad my analysis helped!
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In the textbook publishing business, the second quarter is historically weak, because revenues are low and marketing expenses are high as companies prepare for the coming school year.

(A) low and marketing expenses are high as companies prepare
(B) low and their marketing expenses are high as they prepare
(C) low with higher marketing expenses in preparation
(D) low, while marketing expenses are higher to prepare
(E) low, while their marketing expenses are higher in preparation
My take is different over here more like a run-on error. look at the structure phrase+independent clause then dependent clause nice and simple now D and E while again dc wrong. so d and e are out. The use of 'with' is mostly possessive. something that you have such as with his team, the manager completed the task and with 5 days before the exam, the students start panicking.
with higher marketing expenses in preparation, I am not sure about c
and for b llsm structure is good in A

Hello experts @VeritasKarishma AndrewN sayantanc2k AjiteshArun

I have a query.
In option B why their and they can not refer back to business?

Thanks

Hello kadamhari825,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "they" and "their" cannot refer to "the textbook publishing business", as they are plural pronouns and "the textbook publishing business" is a singular noun; "the textbook publishing business" refers to the industry of textbook publishing as a singular whole.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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dear ExpertsGlobal5,and other experts,
avigutman, AndrewN,MartyTargetTestPrep , RonTargetTestPrep

I narrowed down to A and C,
as ExpertsGlobal5says, the revenues have relatively higher marketing expenses, but does not the use of with have mean two things/people are together?

John went to the store with Jane.
in this case, John , with Jane, went to store, they were together.
why cannot low revenue and high expansion happened together ?

appreciate for your help