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maintain a high demand - 1000SC

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by mehravikas » Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:43 pm
To maintain a high demand for their product, the manufacturers first took over the marketing and sales functions previously performed by outside agents; next, they began changing their advertising campaigns monthly to keep pace with the rapid changes in consumers' lives.

(A) they began changing
(B) this began changing
(C) the former began changing
(D) to begin changing
(E) to change

OA: A
Doubt: Answer should be C because they could refer to manufacturers or outside agents
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by viju9162 » Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:56 pm
Ya I am also surprised with A.

Or else the second sentence is talking about agents and they is referred to agents ?

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by nirmalp » Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:59 pm
The subject in the first sentence is "the manufacturers" and the pronoun in the second clearly refers the same subject of the first sentence. The agents are in the passive form. If there were an usage of pronoun like "them", then the reference would have been confusing.

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by mehravikas » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:05 pm
Do you mean that "they" logically refers to manufacturers and there is no ambiguity?
nirmalp wrote:The subject in the first sentence is "the manufacturers" and the pronoun in the second clearly refers the same subject of the first sentence. The agents are in the passive form. If there were an usage of pronoun like "them", then the reference would have been confusing.

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by nirmalp » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:25 pm
Yes. "To maintain a high demand for their product" has a pronoun referring to the manufacturers. The second usage of the pronoun in active form by default points to manufacturers.

"Former" in c is confusing, if you note. Whether it refers to the former noun (manufacturers) in the sentence or to the former people (agents) who previously handled the sales functions?

PS: This is my understanding.
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by viju9162 » Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:03 pm
Is semi colon (;) playing any role here. The two sentences are independent. If we observe the first sentence, it begins with word "first" and the sentence ends with semi colon. In the second sentence, it begins with next. Maybe, it is referring to the same noun ( manufacturers).

I'm not sure about it. Experts opinion is desperately needed :).

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by 2010gmat » Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:21 pm
https://www.beatthegmat.com/exceptions-t ... t1594.html
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by mehravikas » Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:30 pm
according to this link, the answer is C
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by viju9162 » Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:38 pm
I guess people still carried queries in the mentioned link for this problem. I'm not convinced with the answer either..

In there is problem with the pronoun reference, should we look into the sentence meaning to arrive at the answer.. Quite puzzled :-(
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by mehravikas » Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:43 pm
I agree.

according to GMAT SC rules it does not seem to be correct. Also the question is not given that much importance on that post because it is from 1000 SC.


viju9162 wrote:I guess people still carried queries in the mentioned link for this problem. I'm not convienced with the answer either..

In there is problem with the pronoun reference, should we look into the sentence meaning to arrive at the answer.. Quite puzzled :-(
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by feuergeist » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:25 am
The semi-colon does play a role in this sentence. The semi-colon here separates items in a list or a series. In the first half we are told about the first action of the manufacturers. It is but natural that a second action would follow and that when the second action is mentioned, the subject would definitely be the manufacturers. Therefore there is no confusion over the pronoun reference and A is the correct option.
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