As it is with traditional pharamacies, on-line drugstores

[Hei]

As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health related items.

A.
B. As with the case of traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to have success
C. As is the case with traditional pharmacies, prescriptions are the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore
D. As traditional pharmacies, so on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful
E. Like traditional pharmacies, the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore is prescriptions.

I tried to apply POE.
E will be out since "traditional pharmacies" and "cornerstone" are not comparable.
I don't know how to eliminate the rest. =(

[Hei]

I have seen another GMATPrep question with a similar construction - "As is/would be the case with..., [clause]"
What's the function of "As is/would be the case with..."? What does it mean?
Thanks in advance.

[Hei]

Here is the question with the similar construction:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/lik ... t1119.html

[Hei]

I found another question with the similar structure:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/fos ... t2119.html

Does it mean that I could rewrite the sentence into:
As prescriptions are the cornerstone of a successful traditional pharmacy, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health-related items.

So the structure is always like "as is/was/would...(singular?)..."?

Any rule for using such structure?

[sheetal]

I too have couple of questions here

In the orginal question
As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health-related items.

What does "it" in bold refer to ?

I see a split "As is" (A,C) vs "As with"(B). Is there any rule that says we should prefer one to the other?

My two cents:
E : I think is out because of wrong comparison
D : is out because "as" uasge is incorrect. "As traditional pharmacies do", ... would be more appropriate
A : Iam still wondering what is the referent of "it". I will rule this out.

Between B & C, I am not sure whether "As with" is correct or "As is".

Thanks in advance.

[enginpasa1]

can we please see the qa?


All but D are infested with comparison issues. But D is good and employs the important idiom as x, so is Y.


qa? qa?
qa?
qa? please

[Hei]

OA is C (for my original question)

[RonPurewal]

Does it mean that I could rewrite the sentence into:
As prescriptions are the cornerstone of a successful traditional pharmacy, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health-related items.

you wouldn't want to, because 'as' can be equivalent to 'because' in that position, as in the following sentence:
as i haven't yet recovered from my ankle injury, i will be unable to compete this weekend.

in addition, the two clauses you're creating are needlessly nonparallel (prescriptions are the cornerstone of X should be written so that it's parallel to Y rely on prescriptions, or vice versa).

--

in any case, you should know that '...is/was the case' has the authority to stand for an impressive variety of things, including entire clauses. ('Do so' has the same impressive powers, especially vis-a-vis 'do it', which is limited to situations featuring an actual 'it'.)

[dr_o]

Hi Ron!

Can you elaborate some more on "is/was the case" and of it's great powers :)

Thanks allot.

[Hei]

Thanks Ron.
Could you please explain more about the usage of "...[be] the case..."?
Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Thanks Ron.
Could you please explain more about the usage of "...[be] the case..."?
Thanks in advance.

it's one of those phrases that's allowed to stand in for just about any clause describing a situation. its 'magic powers', so to speak, lie in the fact that it doesn't have to have a precise referent.

imagine that a newspaper contains the following sentence:

as was the case in post-world-war-i germany, hyperinflation has been causing general unrest and panic throughout country x.

notice that there are other ways you could write this thing; for instance, you could write something like 'as it did in ... germany' (where 'it' stands for hyperinflation in this case). however, the italicized version is preferable, because the emphasis of the sentence is on the fact that the situations are similar. (if the sentence appeared in a context of facts about hyperinflation and its effects, the latter version would be more acceptable.)

[jitenderjain065]

Hey Ron, can You please explain, how one is going to get these type of Q right on Exam
"As is the case" - is a clause....now we know it
but what i want to know, how in exam we can eliminate the Wrong choices, as we might not know these type of rules

As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health related items.

A.
B. As with the case of traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to have success
C. As is the case with traditional pharmacies, prescriptions are the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore
D. As traditional pharmacies, so on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful
E. Like traditional pharmacies, the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore is prescriptions.

I tried to apply POE.
E will be out since "traditional pharmacies" and "cornerstone" are not comparable.
I don't know how to eliminate the rest. =(

[RonPurewal]

Hey Ron, can You please explain, how one is going to get these type of Q right on Exam
"As is the case" - is a clause....now we know it
but what i want to know, how in exam we can eliminate the Wrong choices, as we might not know these type of rules

this is what's hard about sentence correction: there's really no substitute for learning these sorts of things, pretty much one at a time.

the good news is that, if you're industrious enough about studying sentence correction problems and getting these sorts of rules as takeaways, you'll be able to rock the SC portion of the exam.

the other—and more important—good news is that, when this sort of thing is tested, you can almost always ignore it.
most often, this kind of thing is just a distraction from other, much more straightforward things.

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

I have doubts in this SC:

A) wrong because of it (no antecedent). Can be the "impersonal" it, such as "it is sunny?
B) I do not why is it wrong. Is it because of the parallelism?
C) Correct. "As is......prescriptions are...."
D) Distorts the meaning: It says that traditional pharmacies "are" online drugstores
E) Wrong because of LIKE. The cornerstone are not similar to traditional pharmacies.
Is correct "the cornerstone...IS prescriptions" or "the cornerstone.....ARE prescriptions"?

Please help me know if I am correct in the POE

[RonPurewal]

A) wrong because of it (no antecedent). Can be the "impersonal" it, such as "it is sunny?

(a) "as it is with..." isn't parallel to anything. this is the main problem.
nothing "is with" online drugstores, so this choice is not sufficiently parallel.

B) I do not why is it wrong. Is it because of the parallelism?

"with the case of" is an incorrect rendering of "as is the case...".
(it's possible for "with the case of" to be correct, but the preposition "with" would have to make sense, AND you'd have to be literally talking about "the case of" something.
for instance: the lawyer made history with the case of X, as with the case of Y
unlike this example, the problem in this thread doesn't satisfy either of these requirements)

C) Correct. "As is......prescriptions are...."

correct, in that "is" and "are" have to be in the same tense.

you may not, however, understand the full scope of the usage of "was/is the case". for more details on that, see the posts that come earlier in this thread.

D) Distorts the meaning: It says that traditional pharmacies "are" online drugstores

that's one way to read it, yes. and that'd be wrong.

the other way to read it is as a comparison (as intended). it'd still be wrong, though, because you can't use "as" with only a noun.

E) Wrong because of LIKE. The cornerstone are not similar to traditional pharmacies.

good.

Is correct "the cornerstone...IS prescriptions" or "the cornerstone.....ARE prescriptions"?

if you have NOUN is/are NOUN, then the noun that comes BEFORE the verb is the subject.

so, you'd say the cornerstone IS prescriptions, but you'd say prescriptions ARE the cornerstone.