Sentence Correction

It ought to be her with whom you share your secrets, not me.

A. her with whom you share your secrets, not me
B. her with whom you share your secrets, not I.
C. she with whom you share your secrets, not me.
D. she with whom you share your secrets, not I.
E. her with who you share your secrets, not me.

A. her and me, both are in objective case.

I will choose "she with whom you share your secrets, not I " , but i am certain that GMAT will not test the usage of me and I in the end .

I will go with C.

Whats the OA?

pzazz12 wrote:It ought to be her with whom you share your secrets, not me.

A. her with whom you share your secrets, not me
B. her with whom you share your secrets, not I.
C. she with whom you share your secrets, not me.
D. she with whom you share your secrets, not I.
E. her with who you share your secrets, not me.

should be D... wats the OA...

As is evident, Subject/Object pronouns are being tested here. The first thing to note would be that her/she and who/whom clearly refer to the same person in the same case, and hence, either both should be subject pronouns or both should be object pronouns.

On this basis alone, you can eliminate C, D and E

C: "she" -> subject pronoun "whom" -> Object pronoun
D: "she" -> subject pronoun "whom" -> Object pronoun
E: "her" -> Object pronoun "who" -> Subject pronoun

In such cases, it often also helps to rephrase the sentence in a more understandable manner.

You ought to share your secrets with her; you do not ought to share your secrets with me.

Again, going by parallelism alone, her and me have to be the same case (she/I or her/me). A uses her/me and is clearly the answer.

As is evident, Subject/Object pronouns are being tested here. The first thing to note would be that her/she and who/whom clearly refer to the same person in the same case, and hence, either both should be subject pronouns or both should be object pronouns.

On this basis alone, you can eliminate C, D and E

C: "she" -> subject pronoun "whom" -> Object pronoun
D: "she" -> subject pronoun "whom" -> Object pronoun
E: "her" -> Object pronoun "who" -> Subject pronoun

In such cases, it often also helps to rephrase the sentence in a more understandable manner.

You ought to share your secrets with her; you do not ought to share your secrets with me.

Again, going by parallelism alone, her and me have to be the same case (she/I or her/me). A uses her/me and is clearly the answer.

Another helpful trick here for native English speakers(I'm not sure how a non-native English speaker would feel about this) is to make the sentence into a question and just answer it.

I rephrased this as, "It ought to be with whom you share your secrets?" "It ought to be with her you share your secrets." The answer would NOT be "It ought to be with she you share your secrets." Hence we know to use the objective case in this instance.

This trick also works for who/whom. For example:

Who/Whom do you think should win the race?

I think he should win the race. Use Who here since he is in the subjective case.

Who/Whom do you love?

I love her. Use Whom here since her is in the objective case.

Hope this helps!

+1 for A
Please post the OA & source.

I would go with A.............B,D and E one can eliminate because B and D uses I instead of me and in E who is being used which should rather be whom. Wats the OA?

Looks like A to me!

Whom can be used when replacing "with" with "her/him" in the sentence still makes sense or where the clause "whom" comes after a preposition such as (to, from, in etc)

Who is appropriate when the word can be replaced with the word he/she

Here "with her you share your secret " seems more appropriate than "with she." Hence whom instead of who. Eliminate C,D,E.

The correct idiom is "with her not with me"

Hence A!

GHong14 wrote:Looks like A to me!

Whom can be used when replacing "with" with "her/him" in the sentence still makes sense or where the clause "whom" comes after a preposition such as (to, from, in etc)

Who is appropriate when the word can be replaced with the word he/she

Here "with her you share your secret " seems more appropriate than "with she." Hence whom instead of who. Eliminate C,D,E.

The correct idiom is "with her not with me"

Hence A!

In fact, "whom" and "him" and "them" all end in "m" for the same reason -- they're all in the same case. Some people find "him" or "them" an easy way to remember when to use "whom."

Isn't "her" possessive, and the counterpart to "his" ?

"It ought to be her...." WHAT?

"Her" Vs. "She" can be answered by looking at "Whom" vs. "Who". We should use "Whom" as the answer to the quesiton " Who/Whom do you share your secrets?" is Him. Choice E is eliminated.

"Whom" refers back to "Her/She" and is in Objective form. Therefore, we should use "Her" since "Her" is Objective. Choice C & D are eliminated.

"I" Vs. "Me" - Can someone clairfy this?

I know "I" is Subjective and "Me" is objective, but I can't figure the Subject of this sentence.

Chose A. Converted into a question.