Trans World Entertainment Corporation, which owns the Record Town and

This question is based on Pronoun Usage and Construction.

The pronoun ‘they’ is ambiguous in Option A. It is not clear whether the pronoun refers to ‘stores’ or ‘retail chains’. So, Option A can be eliminated.

Option B is wordy and contains a tense mismatch. The verb in the present continuous tense ‘is closing’ and the verb in the simple past tense ‘accounted’ are not consistent with each other. So, Option B can also be eliminated.

Option C is concise and contains the correct tense. So, C is the best of all the options.

The phrase “announced to be closing” is idiomatically inappropriate. So, Option D can be eliminated.

Option E is wordy and awkward. The phrase “announced having poor sales” is inappropriate. So, Option E can be eliminated.

Therefore, C is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.

I think C

Trans World Entertainment Corporation, which owns
the Record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains,
announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its
stores are poor, they will be closed.
A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores
are poor, they will be closed -->"they" is not clearly referent to, sales or stores ??
B. it is closing up to one-fourth of its stores, which
accounted for its poor sales --> announced is in past tense, so "is" is illogical
C. it was closing up to one fourth of its stores
because of poor sales --> I think no problem here
D. to be closing, on account of poor sales, up to
one-fourth of its stores --> "annnounced to be closing" seems unidiom
D. having poor sales, such that up to one-fourth of
its stores will be closed --> too many problems: unidiom, illogical

Trans world Entertainment Corporation, which owns the record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed.

A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed
B. It is closing up to one-forth of its stores, which accounted for its poor sales.
C. It was closing up to one fouth of its stores because of poor sales.
D. to be closing, on account of poor sales, up to one-forth of its stores
E. having poor sales, such that up to one-forth of its stores will be closed.

My Ans is C)

A) record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains announced that since sales of up to
In that we have "That since " - two should not come nearly .So A is Wrong
B) Which.. Which same relative pronoun( there will be confusion ) So B is wrong.
C)it is OK
D)Too many dependent clause.So it is wrong.
E)it is wrong

_____________________
Hi Sarai
Can you please suggest how A is wrong.

A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed….. Although retails chains is also a possible contender for the antecedence of they, still stores is the ideal match . However, what is striking here is the rampant use of tense. The sentence starts with a past tense announcement, then shifts to present tense while describing sales and then jumps to future tense for the eventual action. This is the reason it may not contend for the honors of top choice.


B. it is closing up to one-fourth of its stores, which accounted for its poor sales ----- relative pronoun touch rule error
C. it was closing up to one fourth of its stores because of poor sales. --- precise and forthright; correct choice
D. to be closing, on account of poor sales, up to one-fourth of its stores. ---- announced to be closing is unidiomatic
E. having poor sales, such that up to one-fourth of its stores will be closed…… conjugating two ICs with a mere comma, renders it a run-on, precisely a comma splice

@daagh - can you illustrate the "relative pronoun touch rule error" in option B?
Thx.

Capricorn369

B says it is the stores that accounted for its poor sales; What accounted for the company’s poor sales can’t be fixed from the way B states it. It is clear that in real, it should not to stores; if it were to refer to all the stores then all the stores must be closed. The context does not imply that.

_____________________________
I rejected option C seeing because of!!
Can someone please tell me its correct usage!!

Hi Mike,

Thank you for the wonderful explanation as always.
However i want to ask whether C distorts a meaning of the initial sentence even though subtly.

The initial sentence suggests that since sales of up to 1/4th of the stores are poor , those stores will be shut down.
This is what i thought when i was initially going through the answer choices.

Option C suggests that up to 1/4th of the stores are being closed because of poor sales but it is general about which stores are these.

Can you please suggest me if where i was incorrect in my analysis of the choices.
Looking forward to your reponce.

Regards
Akhil

I'm happy to help.

First of all, akhil911, it's important not to be literalist, almost fundamentalist, about meaning. Choice (A) says they will close the stores with poor sales. Choice (C) says, they will close some stores, because of poor sales --- well, obviously, which stores are they going to close? The ones with the poor sales! If some aspect of the sentence goes from an explicit statement to an undeniable inference that is not stated, that constitutes absolutely no change in meaning. The skill of recognizing a perfectly valid inference is most pertinent on GMAT CR & RC, but this is an instance in which the skill is also very important in GMAT SC. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-criti ... inference/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/inference- ... rehension/

And scofield1521, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "because of" --- it is a perfectly valid compound preposition. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom ... positions/
Sometimes folks get confused between "because" (subordinate conjunction) and "because of" (preposition). See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-idiom ... ecause-of/
You may find these GMAT idiom flashcards very helpful:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/flashcards/idioms

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dear Radhika11,
I'm happy to explain why (A) is wrong. Here's the prompt:

Trans world Entertainment Corporation, which owns the record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed.

The phrasing is weak and wordy and lily-livered, but the BIG problem is the pronoun ambiguity. The antecedent of "they" is terribly unclear. Is TWEC going to close all of these retail stores, the entire chain, or is it going to close only the 1/4 that are performing poorly? We can guess, but we cannot give a definitive answer to this question from the prompt. That kind of ambiguity is always wrong on the GMAT.

Does this make sense?
Mike

the reported speech can be in any tense regardless of tense of main clause, depending on meaning. the following is correct
they said that the earth orbit around the sun

the idea in that-clause is a timeless fact. so, the above sentence is correct. but if the action in that-clause is an action which happen at a time, the tense of this clause depend on the tense of main clause. depending on meaning, the sequence of tense maybe hard.

am i correct?

Dear victory47,

I'm happy to respond.

First of all, I don't know whether I would call that clause "timeless fact."
Clause = since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor
That's certainly not a "happen at one moment" fact. It's a condition that is true over a period of time, but that's quite different from a timeless fact--the laws of physics and principles of mathematics are timeless facts, but not a business condition that could fluctuate with a change in the market. Thus, we don't know, in our current time frame, whether this condition in the sentence is still true.

Even if the fact discussed is clearly a timeless fact still true today, if we are reporting a time when it was spoken by a past speaker, we would have to follow the rules of sequence of tenses:
Version #1: The ancient Greeks at Alexandria figured out that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
Version #2: The ancient Greeks at Alexandria figured out that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Technically, only version #1 is correct according to the sequence of tenses rule. Version #2 would be quite common in American colloquial English. I have never seen the GMAT testing this sort of difference, so I wouldn't worry about this distinction for the GMAT. But, if being well-spoken is important to you, I would suggest that you integrate the sequence of tense rules.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hello,

Shouldn't we have "announced that" here? I believe answer should be C only when we have that also in place. Please suggest!!

Thanks
abhimahna

Agreed, sam15000, that's what a real GMAT sentence would do.

Trans World Entertainment Corporation, which owns the Record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains, announced that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed.

A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed
B. it is closing up to one-fourth of its stores, which accounted for its poor sales
C. it was closing up to one fourth of its stores because of poor sales
D. to be closing, on account of poor sales, up to one-fourth of its stores
E. having poor sales, such that up to one-fourth of its stores will be closed

This topic is back in the reckoning after about a decade, jumping from 2007 to 2017, but still eluding the exact rationale for rejecting A and B.

1. As per the tenet of logic, there is no ambiguity as far as the reference of 'they ' is concerned. it does refer to the stores, since one cannot close sales, in the given context. Closing sales means clinching the deal in business parlance. What does 'its' refer to? We must appreciate that Record Town and Saturday Matinee is a brand and not a corporate. Therefore, 'its' does undoubtedly refer to the TWE.
2. The actual reason why A is incorrect is that, in reported speech, when the main clause is in past tense, one has to report the relative clause also in the same vein. 'They would be closed" is the correct diction.
3. In B also the pronouns "it" and 'its' consistently refer to the owning company the TWE. However, omitting the relative clause - connector 'that' is a constructional error in addition to the shift of tense from past to present. The pronoun' which' refers to the one -fourth of the company's stores and these one- fourth number of stores are said to be performing poorly at the market. It may not logically refer to the stores, then it will mean that all the outlets fared poorly; but it is not the intent herein.

Shouldn't 'announced that' a correct form? I am not sure how C is the correct form. Please help.