Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soari

Question

Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soaring,  the university administration has announced that it will hire more faculty members for the next school year.
 
(A) Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soaring, 
(B) Because of soaring class sizes, which is due to a surfeit of undergraduate students,
(C) Because class sizes have been sent soaring, which resulted from a surfeit of undergraduate students,
(D) Due to soaring class sizes from a surfeit of undergraduate students, 
(E) Due to a surfeit of undergraduate students, with the result that class sizes have been sent soaring,
 
This question was modified from OG.  LINK

sudish · Accepted Answer

Here's the solution:

The main split in this question is Because v/s Due
Note that 'Due to' is another replacement for 'Caused by'.

Now, keeping that in mind, if we try to replace the 'Due to' in the options D and E with 'caused by', it does not fit properly, making the sentence awkward. Hence we can straight away eliminate these options.

Now, among options A, B and C:
Option A is the most concise and clear sentence. Hence it's correct.

Option B uses the relative pronoun 'which' to incorrectly qualify the clause 'Because of soaring class sizes'. Also, the option is unnecessarily wordy.

Option C also uses the relative pronoun 'which' incorrectly and is wordier than option B. Hence incorrect.

Hope this helps.

crick20002002 · Answer

+1 for A.

due to vs because

"due to" is only correct in GMAT if it can be replaced by "caused by" and the resulting sentence makes sense.

"because/because of" is used to give reasons. (answer the question why?)

Eg I was late due to rain. (Incorrect) => I was late caused by rain - does not make sense.

I was late because of rain. (Correct)

Crick

avabelieve · Answer

Is "because/because of" always better than "due to" in GMAT?

liftoff · Answer

I went for B because I thought the soaring class size caused the need for recruitment

tuanquang269 · Answer

BECAUSE OF vs. DUE TO 
"Due to" modify a noun
Example: From helicopter, I saw a six mile   traffic jam    due to an overturned truck

"Because of" modify an ENTIRE CLAUSE

Example:
  I was late to the meeting    because of the traffic

HD05 · Answer

In addition to the due to Vs because reason,

anyone is support of active voice and passive voice being the reason ?
I feel,A is a more direct answer in terms of usage, active voice.
D is passive.
KIndly correct if i'm wrong here.

alchemist009 · Answer

i pick A. as far i know "because" answer the question WHY and "due to' answer the question of WHAT..
" the postponement of concert is due to rain" so the postponement is caused by rain. on the other hand " the concert is postponed because it is raining" so why the concert is postponed, because it is raining. so B, D and E are out. C is out because it is unnecessarily passive

geometric · Answer

That's helpful. Thanks. I eliminated A/B/C on this one and went with D. Will never miss a 'due to' problem again!

vikram4689 · Answer

She had a terrible scar (because of/due to) her motorcycle crash ???

Sachin9 · Answer

guess the right thing shud be: She had a terrible scar due to her motorcycle crash

Experts please confirm

WaterFlowsUp · Answer

I do agree to the passive construction used in A provided

WaterFlowsUp · Answer

Could anyone explain how is C wrong?

aashu4uiit · Answer

IN C :

"because"and "which" both introduce dependent clauses. The result is that "which" has no clear referent. The sentence is also chronologically confusing.

rs47 · Answer

I am not able to really get why B is wrong.. isn't the "which" modifying soaring class sizes?? Also, is "soaring class sizes" singular or plural here??

Thanks in advance!!

aditya8062 · Answer

" soaring class sizes"  is PLURAL and .  "SOARING"  is ADJECTIVE modifying  "CLASS SIZES"  ; in fact it is precisely for this reason that  "which IS.."  is WRONG in B

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Hi avabelieve,

Thank you for your question. After looking over the answers quickly, a couple major differences stand out that we need to address:

1. because of / due to
2. the order of events (surfeit of students / class sizes soaring)

Let's start with #1 because it's a pretty common topic on the GMAT: "because of" versus "due to." Here is the easiest way to remember it:

Because of = modifies verbs
Due to = modifies nouns

In this case, the phrase is modifying the verb "will hire." They will hire more teachers  because of  the surefit of students and larger class sizes. Therefore, we can eliminate answers D & E because they use "due to" incorrectly.

Now that it's narrowed down to A, B, & C, let's look at which answer is the clearest to readers. The actual cause needs to be closes to the phrase "because of" for it to be clearest for readers. Let's see how each stacks up:

(A) Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soaring, 
This answer is  CORRECT  because it clearly shows the order of events: more undergraduate students showed up --> class sizes soared --> the university will hire more teachers.

(B) Because of soaring class sizes, which is due to a surfeit of undergraduate students,
 This answer is  INCORRECT  because it shows the events out of order, and it uses "which" with commas to create a non-essential clause. If we remove what's between the commas, the meaning changes - instead of the original cause being more students, it's now the soaring class sizes. It also misuses "due to," so it's altogether a bad answer.

(C) Because class sizes have been sent soaring, which resulted from a surfeit of undergraduate students,
 This answer is  INCORRECT  for the same reason as B - it puts the events out of order, and creates a non-essential clause out of essential information. We need to see the original cause of the university's decision to hire more teachers; otherwise, we're changing the meaning. Also, it's not ideal to use the phrase "resulted from." It's not clear to readers if it's modifying a verb or noun.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

To answer rs47's question about why B is wrong, it has to do with changing meaning with non-essential clauses. The phrase "soaring class sizes" is a singular thing, so the "which is" would be fine if the answer didn't have other problems. Let's look at why B is actually wrong:

A  non-essential clause  is information that is "non-essential" to the meaning of the sentence. Typically those phrases are encased in commas, and you can cross them out without changing meaning. Let's look at answer B in its entirety, but with the non-essential phrase crossed out:

(B) Because of soaring class sizes,  which is due to a surfeit of undergraduate students , the university administration has announced that it will hire more faculty members for the next school year.

The problem with B is that it changes the original meaning of the sentence. In the original sentence, the reason the university hired more teachers was that too many undergraduate students showed up. The cause/effect relationship looked like this:

Cause: too many undergraduate students --> Effect #1: class sizes soared --> Effect #2: university hired more teachers

In B, the soaring class sizes are now the original cause, which isn't true - they are an EFFECT of the extra students.

Since this answer changes an effect to a cause, its meaning is changed and therefore INCORRECT.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Hi avabelieve!

To answer your question about because/due to, they are actually BOTH good answers to use on the GMAT! However, they are both meant to be used differently:

Because/Because of = modifies verbs (My dog ran away because he was afraid of the fireworks.)
Due to = modifies nouns (Due to a thunderstorm, the game cancellation lasted for 4 hours.)

I hope this helps!

sagarraj1986 · Answer

I had a question:

In the sentence, which one of "because of" and "due to" would be preferred, if we had to choose between one?

Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soari

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Because a surfeit of undergraduate students has sent class sizes soari

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