if you’re going to use is closing, which conveys the sentence’s point of view in the present, then you should say have accounted (which is also seen from the present point of view), rather than accounted (past POV).

the OA makes sense if the company was in the midst of closing the stores (or had just begun to close them) at the time of the announcement.

Yes Amiya – ‘that’ after ‘announced’ would have been preferred – unfortunately, the OA doesn’t contain ‘that’. Our takeaway is that the GMAT then allows ‘announced’ to be followed by a clause without a ‘that’.

I would go for C, reason being TransWorld is closing 1/4 of its stores because of poor sales.

B, on the other hand, means, it is closing 1/4 of its stores and these stores were responsible for the poor sales – which is not the case here.

Absolutely 🙂

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

OA Is C.

B. it is closing up to one-fourth of its stores, which accounted for its poor sales 

Hi dolly ,

Thanx siladitya for your response

Thanks dolly ..