gmatrant wrote:Question1:
Declining values for farm equipment and land, the collateral against which farmers borrow to get through the harvest season, is going to force many lenders to tighten or deny credit this spring.

(D) which farmers use as collateral to borrow against to get through the harvest season, are
(E) the collateral against which farmers borrow to get through the harvest season, are

In E what does the appositive "collateral" really modify - "declining values..." or "farm equipment and land".

Question2:
If I changed (D) to the below

(D) which farmers use as collateral to get through the harvest season, are
(E) the collateral against which farmers borrow to get through the harvest season, are

Now from the above two which would you choose as the answer?

Cheers
Gmatrant

Which in option D refers to land not values so E it is..

E - Here "the collateral" modifies "farm equipment and land"
The farmer borrow against what - land and farm equipment.
D - The usage of "which" is wrong here.
At times "Which" can refer to noun or noun phrase depending on situations. Here we cannot deduce what "which" is referring to. Here "which" can refer to :
1. only "land" - wrong

2. "Declining values for farm equipment and land" - wrong

We need to refer only land and farm equipment, so the usage of which is wrong here.
In some sentence you can deduce what which refer to from the meaning as in this :
https://www.beatthegmat.com/modifier-t92964.html
and in some from the surrounding words : the correct OA of OG-12 SC #26

But here we cannot deduce anything : so your edited version is also wrong but better in terms of redundancy.

Please refer ron's explanations :
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/pos ... tml#p31162



I hope this helps.

"which" refers to "farm equipment and land" but D is definitely WORDIER than E

https://www.englishforums.com/English/Ap ... r/post.htm