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Agatha Christie

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by martin.jonson007 » Tue Jun 08, 2010 7:09 am
mals24 wrote:J.R.R Tolkein's Lord of the Ring inspired Peter Jackson to make a movie

Subject: J.R.R Tolkein's LOTR
Verb: inspired
Object: Peter Jackson.

Our question

Agatha Christie's travels inspired her to write several mystery novels

Subject: AC's travels
verb: inspired
Object pronoun: her

Here 'her' is an object pronoun which incorrectly refers to AC's travels.
I wrote the sentence in this way to show you what each word functions as.

A: Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels

The first 'her' is correctly used as a possessive pronoun to refer to AC's travels. However the 2nd her is used incorrectly since an object pronoun can never refer to a possessive noun. Hence this option is INCORRECT.

B: Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery novels

Changes the meaning. Sounds as if she used her travels and her husband as inspiration.

C & D 'Their' has no antecedent.

E: gets rid of the object pronoun 'her' and is hence CORRECT.

Hope this helps
MAls

but in E option too, there is 2nd HER... how u r saying it get ride of 2nd HER
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by Mylogin » Tue Jun 08, 2010 8:17 am
Just replace all the pronouns with nouns and you will get the clue, option E says -

Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her mystery novels

Hence,

Agatha Christie's travels with Agatha Christie's archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of Agatha Christie's mystery novels

HTH
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by jube » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:32 am
RumpelThickSkin wrote:okay begining to understand this concept a bit. I got both this and the Thermometer (mentioned by someone earlier in the post) question wrong! Where can I read up on these rules, still not a 100% clear?
Manhattan GMAT Sentence Consctruction guide is probably the best source to start with. It really clarifies your concepts. This particular rule, which it calls the "Possessive Poison" rule is mentioned there as well.

P.S. It does go on to mention though that because of some controversy a few years ago the GMAT will never differentiate the right answer from the wrong just on the basis of this particular concept.
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by gtvisa2002 » Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:38 am
Someone please help me out here.

I thought it is weird to write "Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband", to me, she is having many husbands and she is traveling with her archaeologist husband and that helped her out.... doesn't this sound weird?

Is something wrong with my understanding.

Thanks.
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by uwhusky » Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:03 am
gtvisa2002 wrote:Someone please help me out here.

I thought it is weird to write "Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband", to me, she is having many husbands and she is traveling with her archaeologist husband and that helped her out.... doesn't this sound weird?

Is something wrong with my understanding.

Thanks.
I am not quite sure how you interpret the clause that way...

Can you rephrase it to what you think is right?
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by gtvisa2002 » Fri Jun 18, 2010 6:03 am
uwhusky wrote:
gtvisa2002 wrote:Someone please help me out here.

I thought it is weird to write "Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband", to me, she is having many husbands and she is traveling with her archaeologist husband and that helped her out.... doesn't this sound weird?

Is something wrong with my understanding.

Thanks.
I am not quite sure how you interpret the clause that way...

Can you rephrase it to what you think is right?
Ok let me try.

If you say "my blue shirt is my favorite", you mean you have many shirts and you want to point out that you are talking about the specific one (blue).....

similarly if you say arc husband, does that mean she has many husbands and only traveling with her arc. husband helped her.

What I think is it would be clear if write that something like "Because her husband was an archaeologist"
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