On account of a law passed in 1993, making it a crime punishable by imprisonment that a United States citizen hold gold in the form of bullion or coins, immigrants found that on arrival in the United States they had to surrender all of the gold they had brought with them.

A. 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 should be eliminated, "United States Citizen hold" is in subjunctive mood. There is no prediction or uncertainity here.
The original intent of the sentence is immigrants foudn that they had to surrender all the gold on arrival because of the new law passed in 1993. In C, the relationship between both parts is removed.

On account of a law passed in 1993, making it a crime punishable by imprisonment that a United States citizen hold gold in the form of bullion or coins, immigrants found that on arrival in the United States they had to surrender all of the gold they had brought with them.

A. 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

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?


C - is wrong because it is a run on sentecne, no conjunction to join two clauses.
E - i) it seems law is still being passed,
ii) that incorrectly modifies 1933. - I think "that" can not refer to law here.

Pathik

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.

You rock, Ron. Thanks for all the questions you've answered for me. :) Thank you~

From Wikipedia:

"In order to end the 1930s general bank crisis, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 in 1933 and the Gold Reserve Act in 1934, which outlawed the circulation and private possession of United States gold coins for general circulation, with an exemption for collector coins. "

The law ended in 1974.

:)

Copied from correct answer D
"Because of a law passed in 1933 making"

I'm confused about what are the rules for whether "making" in above sentence is a verb or participle.
While attempting this problem, I thought it's participle and eliminated it

ah yes, the dreaded "because of X VERBing..." construction.

this construction is incorrect if the causal agent (i.e., the thing that the "because" is attributed to) is the VERB.

for instance,

* we laughed all day because of tony walking into the girls' bathroom --> incorrect, because the verb (walking into the bathroom) is the reason why we were laughing all day.
the correct version of this sentence would read we laughed all day because of tony's walking into the girls' bathroom. in other words, if the causal agent is the action (which appears in -ing form), then it must be preceded by a possessive.

* estelle was afraid to move because of a spider sitting on the wall --> correct, because estelle is afraid because of the spider itself, not because of the spider's sitting on the wall.

this sentence should be read as an instance of the latter: it's the law itself that caused the immigrants' problems.

there you go.