The largest trade-book publisher in the US has announced the creation of a new digital imprint division, under which it will publish about 20 purely digital works to be sold online as either electronic books or downloadable copies that can be printed upon purchase.


A) works to be sold online as either electronic books or
B) works to sell them online, either as electronic books or
C) works and it will sell them online as either electronic books or as
D) works, and selling them online as either electronic books or as
E) works, and it will sell them online as either electronic books or

I choose "E" but answer is not that. Pls help identify errors and correct answer.

rschunti

As is often the case on more difficult sentence correction questions, consideration of both grammatical errors and clarity of meaning is beneficial on this question.

Answer choices B, C, and D incorrectly use the word "as" in conjunction with the "either X or Y" construction: C and D add an unnecessary second "as," while B requires an "as" after "or".

The differences between A and E concern both concision and clarity of meaning. Choice E seems to indicate that the purchase of these purely digital works and the sale of them are two unconnected actions, while A correctly indicates that these "purely digital" works are "to be sold online" (since the works are purely digital). Additionally, the "it will sell them" construction in E is unnecessarily wordy and awkward.

Thus, A is the best response.

-dan

Usage of "to be" in "A" will not make the sentence in passove voice?Is it true or the role of to be is something else. Wanted to clarify as GMAT discourages use of passive voce.

My observation is that the GMAT discourages the use of passive voice more for the main sentence than for subordinate clauses (hope I am using the correct grammatical term here!).

What do others think?

first, there's a much more important reason why e is wrong: it actually alters the meaning of the sentence. (see this thread for explanation)

i would hesitate to make generalizations like that one. instead, just realize that the passive voice is, in general, undesirable unless there's a good reason for using it. by far the most common 'good reason' is that the subject is unknown, forcing the use of the passive voice (because we don't want to use lame words like 'somebody' or 'someone'). that's the reason the passive voice is used here: we don't know (or care) who is going to be selling the materials online.