To prevent businesses from moving, local governments award them annual

Two choices B and C are wrong because of " annual tax breaks each year" - problem of redundancy;
In D, they are described by supporters as vital tools that encourage economic development, BUT critics denounce them as "corporate welfare" weakening - Problem of parallelism;
E - Modifier issue

so clearly A

How do we know the antecedent of the 'them' in the A? That seems to confuse me, isn't it a necessary assumption on the part of the testmaker to think that 'them' refers to businesses, not governments?

Let’s sort it out by replacement technique.
A) businesses from moving, local governments award them local governments annual tax breaks, described by supporters as vital tools that encourage economic development but denounced by critics as "corporate welfare" that weakens
A) businesses from moving, local governments award them businesses annual tax breaks, described by supporters as vital tools that encourage economic development but denounced by critics as "corporate welfare" that weakens

You can see which is logically fitting in.

Your reasoning is correct. But be cautious that it is possible to use "prevent" without "from".

To prevent an accident, I had to steer my vehicle towards right.... correct ("from" is not used with concrete nouns)

However for actions (gerunds) "prevent from" is used. To prevent the busiensses from moving ...... correct

Are we preventing moving of business or business from moving ? please someone clear. I do not find any error in E.

Hello LoneSurvivor,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "the moving of businesses" is less direct than "businesses from moving", making Option E inferior to Option A.

More importantly, "whose supporters describe as vital tools" and "whose critics denounce as "corporate welfare"" fail to convey a coherent meaning; to convey the intended meaning, as they lack subjects for the verbs "describe" and "denounce". These phrases would be correct, if they introduced a subject such as "them" after these verbs.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

The official explanation from GMAT prep. I found this question tricky.

The sentence describes an action undertaken by governments to prevent businesses from moving: i.e., governments are trying to incentivize businesses not to move, but the ultimate decision is up to the businesses themselves. The two contrasting descriptions of the tax breaks, like other direct contrasts, should be expressed using Parallelism.

(A) CORRECT. Prevent businesses from moving is a properly idiomatic way to express the notion that moving would be an action undertaken by the businesses themselves. Additionally, the two groups' opinions of the tax breaks are correctly written in parallel form: described by supporters as… and denounced by critics as…

(B) The wording the moving of businesses is unclear, leaving open the possibility that the governments have the option to move the businesses. The two groups' opinions of the tax breaks (which supporters describe… and are denounced by critics…) are not written in parallel form. Finally, are denounced has no separate subject, implying that its subject is the subject of the other parallel verb, i.e., describe. This choice therefore illogically suggests that the supporters themselves are denounced by critics.

(C) Prevent businesses moving is not idiomatic; the preposition from is required. The use of both annual and each year is redundant; only one of these constructions should be present. Finally, the two groups' opinions of the tax breaks (supporters describe those breaks… and they are denounced by critics… are not written in parallel form.

(D) The use of both annual and each year is redundant; only one of these constructions should be present. In addition, the two groups' opinions of the tax breaks (they are described by supporters as… and critics denounce them as… are not written in parallel form.

(E) The wording the moving of businesses is unclear, leaving open the possibility that the governments have the option to move the businesses. In addition, the verbs describe and denounce lack objects; these verbs must have objects. In other words, a subject must describe or denounce something, not just describe or denounce.

Key Takeaways:
1. Businesses are not objects so prevent businesses from moving is correct.
2. They should have a logically and grammatically correct antecedant.
3. And is a parallelism marker
4. Be cautious about redundancy in the options

Hi can someone explain to me how option A does not have a subject/verb agreement error? I don't see how 'annual tax breaks' pairs with "weakens". It seems as though it should be weaken? Thanks in advance

Hi,

The sentence in A is like this:

To prevent businesses from moving, local governments award them annual tax breaks, described by supporters as vital tools that encourage economic development but denounced by critics as "corporate welfare" that weakens the national economy.
The highlighted portion is a 2 part modifier for annual tax breaks.
part 1: described by supporters as vital tools that encourage economic development
part 2: but denounced by critics as "corporate welfare" that weakens the national economy. - the highlighted portion here is a relative clause for corporate welfare.

To prevent businesses from moving, local governments award them annual tax breaks, - main sentence

Even if you remove the entire modifier the sentence will stand on its own.

Hope it helps.