Hi anujag24,


There are two errors in option B:

1. The phrase “littering of orbits near Earth” is incorrect. “Littering” is happening in the nearby orbits of Earth, but it is certainly not of “orbits”. We can say the orbits have become littered, but “littering of orbits” doesn’t convey the same meaning.
2. Also, the non-underlined portion of the sentence doesn’t tell us about the reason of the littering. It is telling the ways (or the sources) of littering. So, “because of” is incorrectly used here. This error can be corrected by using “from”.


Hope this helps!
Deepak
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Since the start of the space age, more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because the intentional discarding of lens caps, packing material, fuel tanks, and payload covers.

A. more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because
B. orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from
C. orbits near Earth become littered more and more, often resulting from
D. there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of
E. there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with

Usage of "Because"

Match was delayed because rain was pouring heavily.

So the construction of Because is :
1) Because -> Modifies a clause.
2) Because -> Takes a clause.

Difference between "Because of" and "Due to"

Delay in the match was due to heavy rain

So the construction of "Due to"
1) Due to modifies noun or noun phrase (here Delay)
2) Due to takes noun or noun phrase

Match was delayed because of heavy rain

So the construction of "Because of"
1) "Because of" modifies Clause
2) "Because of" takes noun or noun phrase

So in Option A) can be eliminated on the basis of that.

Present Perfect tense

Present perfect tense should be used when an event has occurred in the past and either the event or its effect is continuing till now.
"Since" is a dead give away that we have to use present perfect tense.

Hence option C) and option E) is eliminated

Meaning
D. there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of

There is no littering of orbits but we have littering of different objects in the orbits.

hence D) is eliminated.

Hence Option B) is correct
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Sentence has modifier issue and verb tense issue
A – more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because [Modifier issue – “Since the start of the space age” incorrectly modifies more and more, missing clause structure - eliminate it]
B – orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from [Present perfect tense – hold it]
C – orbits near Earth became littered more and more, often resulting from [But this is happening event – Present perfect tense is preferred – eliminate it]
D – there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of [Modification issue – eliminate it]
E – there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with [Modification issue – eliminate it]

Answer: B

A. more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because "conj needs to follow a sentence"
B. orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from (holding)
C. orbits near Earth become littered more and more, often resulting from (tense wrong)
D. there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of (there have been, awkward)
E. there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with (there had been, awkward, tense wrong)

OA is B.

A. "because" will require a clause after it --> get rid of A.
Also "because" here doesn't convey the right meaning. Using "because" means "the intentional discarding of lens caps..." led to littering. In fact, "the intentional discarding of lens caps.." is littering itself.
--> also get rid of D.

"Since the start of the space age" --> verb tense should be present perfect --> get rid of C, E
Also in C, "resulting from" cannot be used as an adverbial phrase. It needs a noun.

B is the answer.

You can see the problem being vivisected in this thread:

http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sin ... ring-t1639.

A- creates run on
B-
C- usage of "since" implies continuity. Hence "have become" is required.
D & E- incorrect usage of "there"
There is used for two reasons:
i) to point to a location
II) to make an assertion

Hope that helps.
-s
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can anyone please explain why choice D is incorrect?


thanks!
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At the very least, there is a subject-verb disagreement issue in D. It should have been: there has been more and more littering of orbits near Earth....
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Since the start of the space age, more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because the intentional discarding of lens caps, packing material, fuel tanks, and payload covers.
Very first thought after looking at the sentence that the presence of 'Since' indicates present perfect tense. Boiled the choices to A, B and D.

Now before reaching at the answer, let's look at the mistakes in other choices.

A. more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because

often because the intentional discarding of lens caps, packing material, fuel tanks, and payload covers. The sentence is missing something after 'because'

IMO, 'Since the start of the space age' must be followed by the most important thing that we want to talk about- orbits near earth.

B. orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from
SV agreement is correct. 'from' indicates the reason of orbits being littered

C. orbits near Earth become littered more and more, often resulting from
Present perfect is absent.
Presence of present tense 'become'
IMO, 'resulting' is unnecessary here.

D. there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of
'There' must be used for a place.
SV does not agree- 'have been' with 'littering'

E. there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with
'There' must be used for a place.
Past perfect is not required.
'with' represents 'association'; however, we are looking for the reason. Hence,'with' usage is not correct.
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Choice A doesn't convey the right meaning. If I say that littering occurred 'because of' the intentional discarding of those items, that implies that the intentional discarding WASN'T the actual littering. Instead, it means that the intentional discarding set into motion a chain of events that LED to the littering.

For instance:
'The U.S. entered World War II because of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.' -- Correct: the bombing was an event that then LED to the U.S. decision to enter the war, but did not constitute the war itself.

'The U.S. destroyed Hiroshima because of dropping a nuclear bomb.' -- Incorrect: this sentence wrongly implies that the dropping of the bomb LED to some future event in which the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima, rather than that the dropping of the bomb WAS the actual event that destroyed Hiroshima.

In #C there's no NOUN that serves as the focus of the modifier 'resulting from...' (an adjective-type modifier). It's intended to modify the general idea that the orbits have become littered, but there's no NOUN that signifies the littering.

#D has the same problem as #A ('because' is wrong).

ONE MORE IMPORTANT TAKE AWAY: RESULTING FROM

"resulting from" can only be used to describe nouns i.e. adjective modifiers. It can't be used as an adverbial modifier.

If you see comma + 'resulting from', you can eliminate it.

You can have it as an adjective modifier, without a comma - as in the following sentence:
The flooding resulting from the abnormally strong storms had left six inches of standing water in the street.
Note that the boldface is an adjective modifier, modifying 'flooding’. If something results from 'X', then 'X' happens FIRST. if you see comma + 'resulting from', you can eliminate it.

You can have it as an adjective modifier, without a comma - as in the following sentence:
The flooding resulting from the abnormally strong storms had left six inches of standing water in the street.
Note that the boldface is an adjective modifier, modifying 'flooding'.

...but its meaning clashes fundamentally with the usage of comma + __ing.
If something results from 'X', then 'X' happens FIRST.

Source: Ron Purewals Explanation.
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That something is of

It looks like option A has been incorrectly transcribed. It should have an of in the underlined portion (because of).

A moderator might want to fix it.
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Dear zoezhuyan,

How are you, my friend? I'm happy to respond.

First of all, my friend, I am going to chastise you. You are in the very bad habit of entering a thread on one question and then posting an entirely different question and asking about that. This makes the threads very disorganized and it does a disservice to the other users of GMAT Club. You originally posted this question here, but this is the thread devoted specifically to the discussion of this GMAT Prep question. This is really where the discussion of this question should happen. GMAT Club has a certain organization and when students respect this organization, then GMAT Club can provide the highest value to all students.

I will say that while "because" is begins a full subordinate clause, a full [noun] + [verb] clause, the construction "because of" is a compound preposition, and the object of this will be either a noun or something playing the role of a noun (such as a gerund).

In the question you posted, (B) is the OA and is really the best answer by far. I would say the best reason to reject (C) is that it is too wordy, longer than it has to be. (B) is much more elegant. Also, the change in verb tense ("became") changes the meaning.

You wrote:
because "comma + participle phrase" can indicate causal relationship, if "comma + participle phrase" suggests a cause, then it will be placed in front of the main clause, if "comma + participle phrase" suggests a effect, then it will be placed at the ending of the sentence.
I don't fully agree. That is too dogmatic. You are trying to be too mathematical with language. These are, at best, general tendencies, not black & white strict rules. Yes, these are often true, but not always true. They cannot be applied to all cases, irrespective of content.

I would say that having a "resulting from" phrase at the beginning of the sentence would sound extremely awkward. This is a phrase that "belongs" after the main clause.

My friend, here's the problem. You are trying to learn grammar the way one would learn mathematics. You are trying to learn all the rules, as if there were some complete set of rules. This course of action will NOT result in SC mastery. This is an extremely left-brain approach, and SC mastery involves right-brains skills as well. The very best way to develop a sense of how "resulting from" would be used is not to apply some abstract rule. The best way is to read extensively, and when you see this in your reading, you will have a sense of how it is used in the living language. You have to read to build the intuition for how English is used. No memorizing of rules can replace that hard-won intuition.

Does all this make sense?

Have a very good day, my friend.
Mike
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I have studied this problem again and again
what is the difference beteen B and D.

in D, it is possitble that there are more and more littering but the orbit dose not become more and more littered.
so d is different from B.

and so, d is wrong.

this is the 10th time , I study this problem and this time i find out the meaning difference between d and b.

my god, hard one.

takeaway.
becareful of meaning difference between action verb and "there are+noun"

Experts, could you please tag the difficulty level of this question.

Dear mbaprep2017,

I'm happy to respond.

This question is arguably on the harder side. Nevertheless, I am extremely skeptical about the chimera of the "700-level question." See:
Is this a 700+ level GMAT question?
Do you best with each question. Be less concerned with the hypothetical levels. That's my advice.

Dear victory47,

I'm happy to respond.

As a general rule, a sentence is more powerful, more direct, and more effective when all the action in the sentence is encapsulated in verb form. This is part of rhetorical construction, which is one of the hardest aspects of language for non-native speakers to appreciate, but the GMAT tests it. Look at (B):
orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from
BMA! Direct and powerful, like a full speed train--it just moves. Now look at (D):
there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of
This is a lily-livered indirect cringing disaster! These two versions taste different! Part of mastering GMAT SC is you have to become attune to the taste of action. See this blog:
Active Verbs on the GMAT

You can't get that taste by learning rules. The only way to develop this sense is to read. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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The sentence begins with "Since the start of space age." This tells us that the problem has occurred at an indefinite time in the past, and may continue into the present and future. This requires us to use the present perfect tense (i.e., has occurred, have occurred, have become, etc. ).

Since we need the past perfect tense here, we can ELIMINATE C and E
C) orbits near Earth became littered more and more, often resulting from
E) there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with

The agent of a COMMA + VERBing modifier must be the nearest preceding SUBJECT.
In C, resulting seems to refer to orbits -- the nearest preceding subject -- implying that ORBITS are RESULTING from the intentional discarding of lens caps.
This meaning is nonsensical.
Eliminate C.

because + of must be followed by a NOUN or NOUN PHRASE.
because + NO of must be followed by a COMPLETE CLAUSE.
In A, because + NO of is not followed by a complete clause.
Eliminate A.

In D, have been (plural) does not agree with littering (singular).
Eliminate D.

In E, had been littering (past perfect) implies an action completed IN THE PAST, while since the start of the space age implies an action still happening IN THE PRESENT.
Since the two usages contradict each other, eliminate E.

The correct answer is B.
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Since the start of the space age, more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because the intentional discarding lens caps, packing material, fuel tanks, and payload covers.

(A) more and more littering has occurred in orbits near Earth, often because - ‘Because’ is always followed by a clause; ‘Because of’ is followed by a noun
(B) orbits near Earth have become more and more littered, often from - Correct
(C) orbits near Earth became littered more and more, often resulting from - ‘Since’ implies present perfect tense or present perfect continuous tense; we cannot write ‘became’ as a simple past tense verb
(D) there have been more and more littering of orbits near Earth, often because of - The word ‘littering’ is a singular noun; we cannot use the word ‘have’
(E) there had been littering more and more of orbits near Earth, often with - ‘Since’ implies present perfect tense or present perfect continuous tense; we cannot write ‘had been’ as a past perfect tense verb

Answer B
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after littering we can use noun showing place. we can not use littering+physical objects. consult a dictionary for this point.
so, littering of orbits in choice D is right
but "more littering of orbits" dose not mean "orbit become more littered.'. choice D and A mean "more littering of orbits" which is quite different from 'orbits become more littered".