charanrana wrote:
With the advent of sound, many stars of silent films found themselves unable to adapt to the “talkies” because their speaking voices were either unattractive or their acting consisted of only exaggerated pantomime.
A. because their speaking voices were either unattractive or their acting consisted of only exaggerated pantomime
B. because of their voices either being unattractive or their acting being exaggerated pantomime
C. with their unattractive voices and exaggerated pantomime
D. because of their unattractive voices or exaggerated pantomime that didn’t require sound
E. because either their voices were unattractive or their acting was only exaggerated pantomime
The very first thing to notice in the question is that the stars were unable to adapt to the talkies, therefore the first split is the use of "with" or "Because" in the underlined portion, and without doubt we use "Because". Therefore we can eliminate option C.
Evaluating
options A, B, D and E, we see that there is use of "Either....or..." and it is another split we can use to get to the right answer. Option A, B and D wrongly places "Either...or..". Option A says - the stars were unable to adapt to the "talkies" because their speaking voices were either...or their speaking voices were acting...??
Option B and D uses "of" after Because which is fine but again the placement of Either...Or...changes the meaning of the sentence and is actually not the intended meaning.
Options E is spot on with the placement of "Either...Or..." and perfectly keeps the intended meaning of the sentence.