The current administration, being worried over some foreign trade

C is the correct answer. worried about is the correct idiom.

A. Being is unnecessary and worried over is not the correct idiom
B. wrong idiom
C. Correct
D. in that they were worried is wordy. This can be replaced with worried
E. Wordy

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Choice C is best because its phrasing is parallel and concise. A, D, and E begin with unnecessarily wordy phrases. Choice C also uses the idiomatic expression worried about rather than worried over (as in A) or worrying over (as in B); worried about is preferable when describing a condition rather than an action. Whereas C uses compact and parallel noun phrases such as the removal . . . and the failure. . . , the other choices employ phrases that are wordy, awkward, or nonparallel. D is also flawed in that the plural pronoun they does not agree with the singular noun administration.

GMATNinja could you please help critique my analysis for B and E? I do see that they're not correct, but I fail to see exactly why it's not correct. Back-to-back modifiers are not the best way to describe something, but is that the only reason why those are incorrect?

(A) being worried over some foreign trade barriers being removed and our exports failing
(1) Illogical meaning: “The…administration, …being removed…” – an administration isn’t literally “being” removed

(B) worrying over some foreign trade barriers being removed, also over the failure of our exports
(1) Unidiomatic usage of words – “worrying over” should be “worrying about,” which describe a CONDITION rather than an action;
(2) “The current administration,…worrying over,…also over the failure…, has formed…” back to back modifiers creates an unclear sentence. Would this be an error? Or is there a deeper issue here I’m not seeing??

(C) worried about the removal of some foreign trade barriers and the failure of our exports
Best option

(D) in that they were worried about the removal of some foreign trade barriers and also about the failure of our exports
(1) SV disagreement – “they” should logically refer to “administration” so this makes an SV disagreement;

(E) because of its worry concerning the removal of some foreign trade barriers, also concerning the failure of our exports
[b](1) “The current administration,…because of it worrying over,…also concerning the failure…, has formed…” back to back modifiers creates an unclear sentence. Would this be an error? Or is there a deeper issue here I’m not seeing??

Yeah, in general, I'd try to go beyond the reasoning that two consecutive modifiers is less than ideal, and instead, try to show that the modifiers are either illogical or confusing.

Take another look at (B):


First, "worrying over" is one of those faulty idioms that's connected to faulty logic. One could pray over someone. One could hover over someone. But worry over? It kind of makes it sound as though someone is just worrying in the vicinity of the trade barriers, as opposed to worrying about them.

Worse, the phrase, "worrying over some foreign trade barriers being removed" makes it sound as though the administration is worrying about the foreign trade barriers themselves, and the fact that they're being removed is just incidental information about those barriers. But that doesn't work - they're worried about the removal of foreign trade barriers, not the barriers themselves.

So we can get rid of (B) for logic/meaning issues.

Now go back to (E):


The phrase, "its worry concerning the removal," makes it sound as though the worry is of concern to the removal! That makes no sense. It's also not clear what the phrase, "also concerning the failure of our exports" is doing here. The foreign trade barriers are also concerning the failure of our exports? That's incoherent. If you read the sentence several times, you can probably figure out what the author intends to say, but the lack of clarity and logic is certainly a problem, so (E) is out as well.

The takeaway: there's no rule against using consecutive modifiers, but if you're able to identify why those modifiers are illogical or unclear, you'll have a valid reason to eliminate an answer choice.

I hope that helps!

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