While depressed property values...

Magellan · Last edited by Magellan on Fri May 09, 2008 5:48 am; edited 1 time in total

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear.

(A) they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
(B) they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
(C) for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
(D) for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
(E) it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose

OA is A

It seems to me that the pronoun 'they' has no clear antecedent. It can be either 'property values' or 'large investors' --> why isn't it a problem?

Source: OG10 (question 159)

barron · Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 5:29 am Post subject:

My answer is E

is this correct?

all others are elimnated because they and their doesn't have any clear antecedant

tar.goyal · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:11 am Post subject:

E is incorrect because it uses it(singular) to refer to depressed property values(plural).

if I go on eliminating the incorrect answers, I will mark all of them out.

Please suggest!

tar.goyal · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:11 am Post subject:

E is incorrect because it uses it(singular) to refer to depressed property values(plural).

if I go on eliminating the incorrect answers, I will mark all of them out.

Please suggest!

s_raizada · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject:

Magellan, you are absolutely right!

According to Eric or Stuart pronoun antecedent reference is not a grammar problem but a style problem.

The way I approach such sentences is like this
1. Is there a pronoun number agreement error? Both D and E have this problem so you can cross them out
2. Is meaning of the pronoun ambigous? For example in option B and C, they refers to depressed property values and thier refers to homowners. Therefore both options B and C are incorrect

This leaves us with option A and because it is a style problem so GMAT can live with it. In summary, it is lesser of the evils.