Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much bec

Notice that we get a nice juicy decision point to start. If I write, "because of + NOUN," the noun itself is responsible for some consequence, since the preposition "of" must introduce a noun, rather than an action.

However if I write "because + FULL CLAUSE," then an action is responsible for some consequence.

Because (A), (B), and (C) contain the construction "Because of sales," they convey the idea that the sales themselves are the reason retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales. That makes no sense. How can sales explain themselves?

In (D) and (E), we have "Because + FULL CLAUSE," and the clause, in each case, suggests that it's not the sales themselves, but the fact that they were low a year ago. This makes sense. If sales were low a year ago, we'd expect an increase if they rebounded to their former levels.

So (A), (B), and (C) are out.

Now let's look at the last two options in more detail:


This looks pretty good. First, note the use of the past perfect "had been." We use the past perfect when an action takes place before another past event. In this case, the sales had been bad before they were reported. That works.

We also get a lovely parallel construction: they reported gains as much because X as because Y, where X and Y are full clauses. Hang on to (D).


The phrase "sales of a year earlier were as bad as" is problematic for a few reasons. First, you can make a sale of a car, but can you make a sale of a year? At best, that's pretty confusing.

Next, (E) discards the past perfect in favor of the simple past "were as bad," even though one past action happened before another one. Is it definitively wrong? Not necessarily, but it isn't quite as clear, as the reader now has to do more work to puzzle out which action preceded the other.

And even if we argue that the first two issues aren't concrete errors, the construction "sales of a year earlier were as bad as" creates the impression that we're about to compare the sales of one year to the sales of another year. But that's not what we see. Instead we get "that" introducing a clause about shoppers. Can you figure out the intended meaning if you reread a few times? Sure, but it's certainly not as clear as what we saw in (D).

Taken together, (D) is a cleaner, more logical option than (E), so (D) is our winner.

I hope that helps!

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Parallelism + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel.
• "so + adjective" is used to refer to the degree of an adjective, and "as + adjective" is used to refer to a comparison concerning the adjective.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

A: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A ("because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad") and B ("that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts") in the idiomatic construction "as much A as B"; remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel. Further, Option A uses the needlessly indirect construction "their sales of a year earlier being so bad", leading to awkwardness.

B: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A ("because of their sales a year earlier having been as bad") and B ("because shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts") in the idiomatic construction "as much A as B"; remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the idiomatic construction "as + adjective ("bad" in this sentence)" to refer to the degree of the adjective; remember, "so + adjective" is used to refer to the degree of an adjective, and "as + adjective" is used to refer to a comparison concerning the adjective. Additionally, Option B uses the needlessly indirect construction "their sales a year earlier having been as bad", leading to awkwardness.

C: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A ("because of their sales a year earlier being as bad") and B ("because shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts") in the idiomatic construction "as much A as B"; remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the idiomatic construction "as + adjective ("bad" in this sentence)" to refer to the degree of the adjective; remember, "so + adjective" is used to refer to the degree of an adjective, and "as + adjective" is used to refer to a comparison concerning the adjective.

D: Correct. This answer choice correctly maintains parallelism between A ("because their sales a year earlier had been so bad") and B ("because shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts") in the idiomatic construction "as much A as B". Further, Option D correctly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past - sales a year earlier being so bad and retailers reporting certain information. Additionally, Option D correctly uses the idiomatic construction "so + adjective ("bad" in this sentence)" to refer to the degree of the adjective. Besides, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A ("because their sales of a year earlier were as bad") and B ("that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts") in the idiomatic construction "as much A as B"; remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "were" to refer to the earlier of two actions that took place in the past - sales a year earlier being so bad and retailers reporting certain information; remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option E incorrectly uses the idiomatic construction "as + adjective ("bad" in this sentence)" to refer to the degree of the adjective; remember, "so + adjective" is used to refer to the degree of an adjective, and "as + adjective" is used to refer to a comparison concerning the adjective.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



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



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

D for me A and E are out ... they dont have the parallel "because"

and B and C have "of"

A & C out for being

If you look at first part of the sentence it says Retailers reported (past tense). We are talking about an event an year before. So we clearly need a past perfect. So B & E out. D remains

Also look at E, their sales of a year is different from their sales a year earlier. their sales of a year counts the total earnings of the year. The intent is to compare the current sales to an year earlier not to the entire year earlier. E can be taken out.

Another reason why E possibly is wrong. IMO, 3 as's in one sentence is almost always wrong. one as balances out the other as. What is the dangling as referring to??

OA is D . I have no idea how ! as because ??????

Just make it as simple as possible. It is // structure question. As much ~ as...since as much because is used upfront, we need to have "as because" in place later. Simple it is...^*

D as it is parallel and uses the "as much as" idiom correctly. Here is the correct output:

Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

Answer: D

Strike 1
Parallelism - 'of' is redundant. It should be 'as much because [something] as [something]' -> eliminate A, B and C.

Strike 2
Rule: event/matter should immediately be followed with the 'when' info. E.g. 'I had a huge cake for my birthday last year' and not '..for my birthday of last year'.
It should be 'their sales a year earlier'. Again, 'of' is redundant. -> eliminate E

Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

1) We're looking for the structure as much because...as because...2) "because of + noun/-ing verb or because + noun + verb is correct. "their sales of a year earlier being bad" is a very awkward phrase that functions like a noun but should be stated better (with because + subject + verb). Eliminate A, B, C.

D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that past perfect (had been, not were) is needed to describe an action in the past that happened prior to another action in the past. First the sales were bad and then it was reported.

hi'
the Q tests parallelism ..
as much because X as because Y
here X and Y should be parallel
"as much because" is already in nonunderlined portion, so underlined portion should have 'as because"..

the choices
A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because...correct
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that

Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year
earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

A. of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that -- Parallelism issue -- as much because .. as that and usage of being , Sales of a year is wrong
B. of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because -- As bad as -- the comparison element is missing , having been is awkward
C. of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because -- As bad as -- the comparison element is missing , also usage of being
D. their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because -- Correct
E. their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that -- Parallelism issue -- as much because .. as that , Sales of a year is wrong ,

Answer D

Dear Mod
Is there any other way apart from as much because...as because to find out the correct option. i Was stuck between D and E

In D "a year earlier" is an adverb (adverbial phrase) referring to the verb "had been": The sales had been bad a year earlier.
In E, an adverb cannot be used - a noun is required since here the usage is as an object of preposition:
OF + noun/ noun phrase... correct
OF + adverb/ adverbial phrase... wrong.
Thus "of an year earlier" is wrong - should be "of the earlier year": "the earlier year" is a noun phrase, but "an year earlier" is an adverbial phrase.

Hi @daagh, Hope you're well. I've a query about D (4). As far we know that pronoun ambiguity is not tested in GMAT. So, my question is how ''their'' is sometimes used for ''retailers'' and sometimes used for ''shoppers''. Isn't it pronoun ambiguity? Also, May i know the source of this question, expert? thanks...

D is the only correct option here. This question tests verb tense, idiom and parallelism. "As much as" should be a correct idiom here. Also, 2 events are being discussed here so the earlier event has to be in past perfect.

(A) of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that ---being makes no sense here.
(B) of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because --- we cannot have As much ... as ... as .
(C) of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because ------ we cannot have As much ... as ... as .
(D) their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
(E) their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that[/quote] --- we cannot have As much ... as ... as .

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We have two "their" in this sentence. And each of them is used for a different antecedent. It is perfectly conveying the right meaning by pointing individual their to the correct antecedent. Moreover, you should better find errors in the non-underlined part of sentence, rather that questioning the actual argument.

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Sorry, bad news: pronoun ambiguity IS tested on the GMAT. It's just that it's not an absolute rule: something that looks like pronoun ambiguity can definitely be OK, depending on the exact circumstances. Here, check out this YouTube video for more on the nuances of pronouns, and particularly pronoun ambiguity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhN_KU1bSKU. (Disclaimer: all of these videos were recorded live, so please don't expect polished perfection!)

And mrinal0308 is absolutely correct that there are far more important issues in this particular question, and the pronoun isn't a significant problem here.

I hope this helps!