Prep Questions - Trans World Entertainment Corporation

[NicoleT643]

as mentioned in earlier posts:

• "sales OF xxxx" implies that "xxxx" is the thing being sold.
...so, "sales OF up to 1/4 of the stores" means that STORES are being sold. this is nonsense (no one is selling stores here).

• the combination of the past tense ("announced") and the future tense ("WILL be closed") is ... weird, and would only make sense in a VERY specialized situation (= basically, the situation in which an announcement had just been made, about a closure that has yet to start happening—for instance, the way this sort of thing would be announced on the evening news on the day of the announcement).
if you are interpreting a SC sentence in a way that requires a VERY "special", "weird", or "ultra-specific" timeframe... that interpretation isn't going to be the right one. the CORRECT interpretations are going to make sense in much broader terms/contexts.

Thanks for your explanation, it's very helpful!

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[EleanorJian]

Trans World Entertainment Corporation, which owns the RecordTown 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

Dear Ron，

I am confused with A，in my opinion, the use of "are" is correct?In the main clause, the author uses "announced",so it means this event happened in the past,should we use past tense?

Beseides, in C，“on account of ”seems weird ,could you explain it pls? thank you !

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I agree with you that the tense of 'are poor' in answer A is pretty suspicious. The verb 'have been poor' would better convey the meaning of the recent past. However, the critical issue of A is the pronoun ambiguity.

I presume you're referring to answer D with 'on account of'. This phrase is fine as an alternative to 'because of'.

[JustinCKN]

Dear Ron,

I am not sure whether you are still a mentor in this forum. May I ask you a question?
in Choice A,
A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed

common sense tells me that the pronoun 'they' should refer to 'stores'

I remember that 'they' should refer back to the nouns with all attached modifiers. for choice A, 'they' refer to 'stores' or 'one-fourth of its stores'?

have a good one!
thx.

[TiffanyB]

Hello JustinCKN!

I am a Manhattan Prep GMAT instructor. It looks like you are asking what the pronoun "they" refers to in answer choice A, is that correct?

You state:

in Choice A,
A. that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed

common sense tells me that the pronoun 'they' should refer to 'stores'

I remember that 'they' should refer back to the nouns with all attached modifiers. for choice A, 'they' refer to 'stores' or 'one-fourth of its stores'?

have a good one!
thx.

The problem here is that we can't be sure whether "they" is referring to ALL stores or to one-fourth of stores. It seems that if one-fourth of a corporation's stores were performing poorly, it could be reasonable to believe that the entire corporation is struggling. It could also be reasonable to believe that they can improve overall performance simply by closing one-fourth of their stores, saving the others.

I'm not certain exactly what the author intended in answer choice A, because they used an ambiguous pronoun. If you're not sure which meaning is intended in an answer choice and several meanings are possible, it's a good idea to consider whether there is too much ambiguity for that answer choice to be correct.

Tiffany Berkebile
Manhattan Prep GMAT Instructor & Tutor

[JustinCKN]

Hi TiffanyB,

Thanks for your detailed explanation.

According to your analysis, in choice A: that since sales of up to one-fourth of its stores are poor, they will be closed. 'they' is an ambiguous pronoun.

I think the ambiguous issue is about whether 'they' refer to 'all stores' or to 'one-fourth of stores', not about whether 'they' refer to 'sales' or to 'stores'.

because, In GMAT when a pronoun possibly refer to 2 nouns, we have to use common sense to choose the reasonable one rather than simply delete that choice based on 'pronoun ambiguous'

Regards,
have a good one!

[TiffanyB]

Hello JustinCKN,

I think that's a great point to raise. Sometimes you will see a pronoun that could stand in for a couple of different nouns. Ultimately, there will be some cases in which you can very logically see which noun must be the antecedent; in other cases, perhaps it will not be so clear.

When you're reviewing any problem, you should always have at least one problem takeaway. The takeaways should address how each problem will inform your approach on future problems.

In the case of this particular problem, a couple of excellent takeaways are that eliminating answer choices is a great strategy for SC and that as you eliminate, you may discover that the final 2-3 answer choices remaining test more subtle issues. There may even be some cases in which the final answer you select doesn't seem correct, but it must be the right answer simply because all of the other answer choices are worse.

In this case, the correct answer avoids the issue of ambiguous pronouns. It's good that you have analyzed this problem so fully. Now I would recommend that you recognize that the big picture takeaway for this problem is to recognize that there is ambiguity in answer choice A, which is not present in the correct answer.

Best Wishes,
Tiffany Berkebile
Manhattan Prep GMAT Instructor

[JustinCKN]

Hello JustinCKN,

I think that's a great point to raise. Sometimes you will see a pronoun that could stand in for a couple of different nouns. Ultimately, there will be some cases in which you can very logically see which noun must be the antecedent; in other cases, perhaps it will not be so clear.

When you're reviewing any problem, you should always have at least one problem takeaway. The takeaways should address how each problem will inform your approach on future problems.

In the case of this particular problem, a couple of excellent takeaways are that eliminating answer choices is a great strategy for SC and that as you eliminate, you may discover that the final 2-3 answer choices remaining test more subtle issues. There may even be some cases in which the final answer you select doesn't seem correct, but it must be the right answer simply because all of the other answer choices are worse.

In this case, the correct answer avoids the issue of ambiguous pronouns. It's good that you have analyzed this problem so fully. Now I would recommend that you recognize that the big picture takeaway for this problem is to recognize that there is ambiguity in answer choice A, which is not present in the correct answer.

Best Wishes,
Tiffany Berkebile
Manhattan Prep GMAT Instructor

Hi Tiffany,
Thx from my heart for ur detailed recommendation and effort. It is my honor to receive ur advise.
have a good one!

Justin