Sentence Correction

208. Chicago, where industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city, was plagued by labor troubles like the Pullman Strikes of 1894.

(A) where industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city
(B) which had industrial growth in the nineteenth century more rapid than that of other American cities
(C) which had growth industrially more rapid than any other American city in the nineteenth century
(D) whose industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city
(E) whose industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than that of any other American city


A) Industrial growth in chicago compared to other cities. wrong
B) Correct
C) same as A
D) and E) whose is not appropriate.

Please comment if my analysis is wrong.

The understanding about the use of WHOSE is incomplete.

I don not know the source, probably some onine notes clearly states the use of Whose.
I happened to note down the exact words, so I am just copying that.

WHose is used as possessive form of WHO and thus should be restricted to animates. (which is why you have ignored D and E)

But, there is extensive iterary presedent for the use of whose with inanimate antecedant.
For example: "The play, whose stye is formal, is typical of that period."
Thus, whose can also be used in place of "of which"

Pahwa is absolutely right on this one. There is a precedent to use whose for inanimates. Actually, if I were testing, A and D are the best possible answer choices, and the ones between which I would vacillate. The question is, how does the GMAT apply this rule? Remember, the point of the test is to choose the best answer given based on GMAT English. Not the right answer according to what you (in your infinite brilliance ) would say or write.

What is the OA?

Can someone do a little research on this one? What does the GMAT think on this one? Stacey, do you know?

OA is E

With D, I would guess that the industrial growth in chicago is compared with other cities. If 'whose' is fine to be used, then E is the answer, since it compares industrial growth in chiago to the industrial growth in other cities [usage of 'that']

makes sense??

still confused about usage of whose!

Okay, looked at it again, and I missed something in the example. The example sentence can't be correct because it should read:

Chicago, where industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city's, was plagued by labor troubles like the Pullman Strikes of 1894.

The example sentence is wrong because it doesn't make city possessive. It has to be because that is the only way to make it clear that Chicago is being compared with other American cities. The only other way to do it is to add the pronoun expression "that of" before 'other American city', and the only answer choice that corrects this is E (B is wrong because it starts of with 'which').

** As for the usage of whose, it is a possessive pronoun form of who, and absolutely can be used with inanimates. It's the only one that can, and I found that answer on the Merriam Webster website.

Hope that helped!

thank you!

you're welcome!

thanks for discussion.
My pick was also E but without any good reason to back it up.

Guys,

I was stuck with this question.

Oa is E but I do not like it.
(E) ..... than that of any other American city
Word ANY implies that the growth was more rapid than in Chicagi itself (any other city), it is bigger than itself.

I saw such reasoninsg in OG. What do you think?

Isn't this question wrong?

I think so. Since all the sentences uses relative clauses, (whose, which, where) which help identify the particular city in question, as if there were more than one Chicago city and we are identifying the one in question.

pahwa wrote:The understanding about the use of WHOSE is incomplete.

I don not know the source, probably some onine notes clearly states the use of Whose.
I happened to note down the exact words, so I am just copying that.

WHose is used as possessive form of WHO and thus should be restricted to animates. (which is why you have ignored D and E)

But, there is extensive iterary presedent for the use of whose with inanimate antecedant.
For example: "The play, whose stye is formal, is typical of that period."
Thus, whose can also be used in place of "of which"

https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/whose