Bloomingdale‘s store in Santa Monica, which opened this summer, is about 105,000
square feet on two floors, less than one-eighth the size of the chain‘s Manhattan flagship
store.
A. store in Santa Monica, which opened this summer, is about 105,000 square
feet on two floors, less than one-eighth the size of the chain‘s Manhattan
flagship store.
B. Santa Monica store, which opened this summer, is about 105,000
square feet on two floors, less than one-eighth the size of the chain‘s
Manhattan flagship store.
C. store in Santa Monica, which opened this summer, is about 105,000 square
feet on two floors, fewer than one-eighth the size of the Manhattan flagship
store.
D. Santa Monica store, which opened this summer, is about 105,000 square feet
on two floors, less than one-eighth the size of the Manhattan flagship store.
E. Santa Monica store, which opened this summer, is about 105,000 square feet
on two floors, less than one-eighth the size of their Manhattan flagship store.





OA is B. But I do not see anything wrong with A. why can't we use 'which' to modifiy the stores.

B changes the meaning by replacing "store in Santa Monica" to "Santa Monica store".

Acc to Manhattan's SC guide, you cannot really shorten prepositional phrase as in this example, unless the prep. phrase starts with "of".

Hi.... is the answer D?

A is wrong cos it uses 'which' incorrectly.... which should point to the word right behind it..... so what A implies is that Santa monica opened this summer and that is definately wrong.... according to me D is the right answer cos which is used correctly and also ' santa monica store...manhattan flagship store' are parallel.... the comparison is correct. So for me thats the best answer...

hope this helps let me know if im right about the answer....

Well, I think which is used to modify the word preceding it, so in this case, store should precede which rather than santa monica. And also, the comparison should be sound. So, the Santa Monica store (of chain) and chain's Manhattan flagship store are well compared.

Correct me if I am wrong. I think B is correct.

Hi gur.rulz,

I think the guys have answered your question on why "which" is incorrect in some of the answer choices.

I will just add that don't be too quick to jump on the meaning aspect of a sentence. Remember that if an answer choice is grammatically incorrect then we cannot rely on that choice for meaning. Remember that the order that you must follow to choose the correct answer is grammar first and then meaning and concision.

I do agree with you that the shortening of the prepositional phrase was not great but guess there is nothing else we can pick so B is the best option available.

What is the source of this problem?

Thanks

Sunil

we'll get back to you when you give us a source for this problem..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

The question is from Aristotle SC grail 2nd edition.

That's what i was afraid of. Some of these answer choices are too close to each other to make a meaningful distinction between them, and ALL FIVE answer choices tell you that the store itself IS 105000 square feet, which is absurd. Unfortunately our instructors will be unable to give you any further help on this question, because the question itself is flawed in a way that you won't see on the GMAT. please understand that using practice questions from dubious sources can actually hurt your performance, and be careful which problem sources you use..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor