In the late 1890s, Pacific trading companies ceased to place traders

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



THE PROMPT


THE OPTIONS

• a semicolon may only be placed between two complete sentences (independent clauses that contain a subject and a working verb), but what comes after the semicolon is not a complete sentence.
It lacks a subject and a verb.
ELIMINATE A


• the phrase beginning of the requirement is nonsensical (how does one begin OF a requirement?) and not idiomatic
ELIMINATE B


• I see no errors
→ the semicolon in option A has been replaced by a comma
→ the verb began is parallel to ceased (. . . Pacific trading companies ceased to place traders in residence . . . )
KEEP C

• beginning instead to be required is illogical.
→ the trading companies themselves began to require direct negotiation with local inhabitants.
The trading companies were not required to begin doing so by someone else or by an outside entity.
ELIMINATE D


• the singular pronoun it does not agree with its plural antecedent, the Pacific trading companies
ELIMINATE E

The answer is C.

NOTES

Do not confuse the adverb instead with the preposition instead of, which is often suspect.
-- On the GMAT, instead is correct much more often than is instead of, but instead is tested far less often than instead of.

That is, GMAC frquently pits the preposition instead of against rather than and heavily favors the latter: rather than can be followed by nearly any grammatical construction, including a clause (a thing with a subject and verb) or just a noun phrase, whereas the preposition instead of can be followed only by a noun.

I would simply remember that GMAC almost always prefers "rather than" to "instead of." (For an overview of this subject, see this video and its transcript here.)

I would also remember that instead and instead of are not the same and would be much more suspicious of instead of.

COMMENTS

These answers are very good. Nice work!