Use of pronouns

This topic has expert replies
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 117
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:29 am
Location: Australia
Thanked: 4 times
Followed by:5 members
GMAT Score:760

Use of pronouns

by Indradeep » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:16 am
Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.

(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house

(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses

(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house

(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses

(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses

When we say that the pronoun is misplaced, what is the general rule wrt clauses, as there are lot of clauses.

Legendary Member
Posts: 940
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:22 am
Thanked: 55 times
Followed by:1 members

Re: Use of pronouns

by iamcste » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:36 am
Indradeep wrote:Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.

(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house

(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses

(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house

(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses

(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses

When we say that the pronoun is misplaced, what is the general rule wrt clauses, as there are lot of clauses.


D and E

Murals are kind of paintings.

women, whose murals-paintings of Ndebele women-possible

women with murals-women with paintings--nopes

hence women with paintings is not possible

A, B and C


In C-"They" is in subject form while the other pronouns are in possessive case...Secondly, does it refer to murals or women

A and B

I preferred A over B for

1. From X to Y is idiomatic ( A uses this idiom)

2. does away with pronoun for the third item in the list.

3. Usage of "That"..not sure but per me, not required

A

Legendary Member
Posts: 829
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:09 pm
Location: INDIA
Thanked: 84 times
Followed by:3 members

Re: Use of pronouns

by sudhir3127 » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:51 am
Indradeep wrote:Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.

(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house

(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses

(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house

(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses

(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses

When we say that the pronoun is misplaced, what is the general rule wrt clauses, as there are lot of clauses.
i go with A as well

whose clearly refers to Ndebele women
their refers to murals ,
follows the rule that a pronoun after a clause would refer to the subject of the previous clause , here the pronoun their is referring to the murals , subject of the previous clause

Legendary Member
Posts: 708
Joined: Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:59 am
Location: USA
Thanked: 13 times
Followed by:1 members

by niraj_a » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:51 am
A.

wrt to clauses, the appropriate word(s)/phrase(s) needs to point to the intended subject / phrase. even if you didn't know this, it is apprpropriate to look for other errors in the answer choice and then eliminate those with other errors. once you have narrowed it down to 2-3 choices, then you can decide which one is better in terms of grammer / meaning.

would it hurt you guys to take an extra second to underline the appropriate part of the stem?

Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 114
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:03 pm
Thanked: 4 times
Followed by:5 members

by jnellaz » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:07 am
Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.

(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house

Correct ussage. "Whose" refers back to Ndebele women. Parallelism is correct

(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying
among women and houses

What is wrong in this sentence is the "are" before embellished. The correct usage should be "symmetries embellished with old.."

(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house

Again. The "are" before embellished is wrong.

(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses

(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses

Both D and E start incorrectly with "With". It sounds as if Margeret has travelled with the murals. These should be eliminated.

IMO: A.

Legendary Member
Posts: 621
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:13 pm
Thanked: 33 times
Followed by:4 members

by vittalgmat » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:43 pm
indradeep
Friendly request: Pls underline the part of the sentence that needs to be corrected.

thanks