SC Question of the Day

Came across this interesting SC question on some website:

In a leveraged buyout, investors borrow huge sums of money to buy companies, hoping to pay off the debt by using the company's earnings and to profit richly by the later resale of the companies or their divisions.

(A) by using the company's earnings and to profit
(B) by using the companies' earnings and by profiting
(C) using the companies' earnings and profiting
(D) with the company's earnings, profiting
(E) with the companies' earnings and to profit

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWER

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWER

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWER

Original Answer - E

EXPLANATION:

A - 'by using' is not as good an option as 'with' in E; it also helps avoid the undesirable '-ing' construction. Also 'company's earnings' refers to the earnings of a specific company, the correct option should read 'companies' earnings' to refer to all companies in general.

B - Incorrectly makes 'using' parallel with 'profiting'. Investors are hoping for 2 things - 'to pay off the debt' and 'to profit richly' and it is these 2 things that should be parallel.

C - Same as B

D - Incomplete sentence - you need a connector between 'earnings' and 'profiting'.

E - The correct option - makes 'to pay' parallel with 'to profit' and also avoids 'using'.