Anonymous Wrote:On account of a law passed in 1993, making it a crime punishable by imprisonment that a United States citizen hold
B. With a law passed in 1933 that makes it a crime punishable by imprisonment that a United States citizen hold
C. A law passed in 1933 that made it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a United States citizen holding
D. Because of a law passed in 1933 making it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a United States citizen to hold
E. Due to a law being passed in 1933 that makes it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a United States citizen to hold
The answer is D. Why the others are wrong?
I chose C. And I remember the GMAT staff here always remind us that because of + Ving is always a bad usage. Then why D?
a, b, c can all be eliminated because of improper idiomatic usage: the proper idiom is '...a crime
for blah blah blah
to hold...'
'with' in choice b is also bad: it seems to imply that immigrants arrived with the law in their hands.
choice c implies that the immigrants themselves are 'a law passed in 19xx' (analogy: 'an accomplished pianist, jay made a nice living playing at weddings' - jay is an accomplished pianist. same reading applies to this sentence, although it's considerably longer and more difficult to parse)
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i believe you've misconstrued our advice not to write
'because of V-ing', in
exactly that form.
choice d doesn't do that: it writes 'because of
a law', where 'a law' is definitely a noun. (the subsequent modifier 'making it a crime...' modifies 'law', and is not associated with 'because of')
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choice e changes the meaning of the sentence: taken literally, it says that the immigrants found themselves in this unenviable situation not because of the law itself, but because of the
passage of the law. although somewhat plausible, this is not the intent of the original sentence.
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two things:
1) does the problem say 1993 or 1933? the posts keep flipping back and forth between those years.
2) this isn't really true, is it? i know plenty of people who own gold coins/bullion, at least in small amounts.