Sneha2021
VeritasKarishma GMATNinjaHi Experts,
Please help me to understand the following points in A and B
1)What kind of usage is "because of + being"? What's the role of "being" here?
2)Is the usage correct? Is it a dependent clause or a modifier?
(A) when peanuts were introduced to Africa by Portuguese explorers early in sixteenth century they were quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture, probably because of being
(B) peanuts having been introduced to Africa by Portuguese explorers early in the sixteenth century and quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture, probably because of being
Hello
Sneha2021,
We hope this finds you well.
Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.
In the construction "because of being", "because of" is a prepositional phrase that conveys a cause-effect relationship, wherein the noun following the phrase is the cause. Further, in this construction "being" is a noun; specifically, it is the present participle ("verb+ing") form of "be", acting as a noun; this noun refers to the action of peanuts being similar to the Bambarra groundnut. Please note that we can be certain that "being" is a noun, rather than a verb in the passive continuous tense, in this context, since prepositions are always followed by nouns.
Thus, taken together, this phrase conveys that peanuts are "so similar to the Bambarra groundnut", and as a result, they were quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture. This phrase is grammatically correct, but the use of "being" renders it needlessly indirect, making it inferior to "because they were", which is used in the best answer choice, Option C. Remember, “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
To understand the use of "Being" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):
All the best!
Experts' Global Team