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Where vs Whose

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by crackgmat007 » Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:24 am
The announced relocation of the hospital has been welcome news for the city, where economic growth has been stagnant for the past several years.

city, where economic growth has been stagnant
city whose economic growth has been stagnant
city where economic growth has been stagnated
city, whose economic growth as been stagnated
city, the site of stagnated economic growth
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ans

by crackthetest » Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:20 pm
It is the relocation of hospital that is in the city, so it is the city that should be addressed here.

In both a and c, where doesn't make sense.
d - wrong wording
e - changes the sentence

IMO B. What is the OA please?
Last edited by crackthetest on Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by mruzeful » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:25 am
My take - A

whose can refer to either hospital or city - ambiguous

where refers to only city


OA plz
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by vinayakdl » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:57 am
"whose" when refering to something tells something about the place,city, person...etc it is referring to.
"where" refers to a place like city, country etc

the sentence here is tell about a city and this city's "economic development has been stagnant". since "economic development has been stagnant" is describing city "whose" is correct


"the city where they plane was developed..."
"the city whose weather is fickle..."

I will go with B


Vinayak
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by arorag » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:15 pm
will go with A
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by gmatv09 » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:23 pm
IMO A

"where" refers to City.
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Re: Where vs Whose

by umaa » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:26 pm
crackgmat007 wrote:The announced relocation of the hospital has been welcome news for the city, where economic growth has been stagnant for the past several years.

city, where economic growth has been stagnant
city whose economic growth has been stagnant
city where economic growth has been stagnated
city, whose economic growth as been stagnated
city, the site of stagnated economic growth
IMO A.

B and C are incorrect. there is no comma between CITY and WHOSE.

E - THE SITE is unnecessary

Are you sure its AS is D? If its HAS, then the problem would be little difficult.

AS is incorrect - D out.

OA pls.
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Re: Where vs Whose

by nervesofsteel » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:40 pm
crackgmat007 wrote:The announced relocation of the hospital has been welcome news for the city, where economic growth has been stagnant for the past several years.

city, where economic growth has been stagnant
city whose economic growth has been stagnant
city where economic growth has been stagnated
city, whose economic growth as been stagnated
city, the site of stagnated economic growth
IMO B

whose is more specific to address "city" as compared to where

whose can mean City's economic growth...
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by crackgmat007 » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:30 pm
OA - A But was not sure whether my reasoning is correct.

IMO in 2, 'whose' can refer to 'city' (noun in the prep phrase 'for the city') or 'welcome news' noun phrase (direct object). Hence, A.

Can experts confirm this pls?
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by nervesofsteel » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:31 am
experts please comment on this qtn....

Thanks
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by DarkKnight » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:30 pm
I still don't agree with A b/c "where / whose economic growth has been stagnant" is an essential modifier in this context and hence there shouldn't be a comma separating essential modifier. So of the two choice with no-commas, I would go with C but can't rule out B based on any error. Experts please correct if this reasoning is wrong.
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:51 am
Received a PM asking me to reply. What is the source of this question?

I'm not a big fan of this question - aspects of it don't seem very GMAT-like to me. I'm technically not supposed to reply till we get a source, but I'll discuss briefly because it's been a while since the person who asked me to discuss this sent me the PM.

"whose" is the possessive form of a relative pronoun ("who" is the subjective form). Possessive implies ownership - specifically the noun before owns whatever is after the "whose." "The dog whose tail is wagging is happy to see you." The dog owns the wagging tail. Would it make sense to say that the city "owns" stagnating economic growth? Not exactly - so don't use "whose" here. Eliminate B and D.

A and C have two main differences: the comma (or absence thereof) and "stagnated" vs. "stagnant. This is where I don't like this question much, because I don't think the real GMAT would have these two choices together.

First, A uses a comma after city, so it's telling us that the stuff after city is a nonessential modifier. C doesn't use the comma, so it's saying that the stuff after city is an essential modifier. You can write this either way; it just depends what the sentence is trying to say. Judgment call - and we're supposed to go with the original meaning when there are two possible meanings. So go with nonessential. And as soon as you realize that, the problem is over, because only A preserves the original meaning. Not GMAT-like.

Second, "stagnated" is too obviously wrong. This isn't an idiom issue - they're just making up a word that might be a more common non-native speaker mistake (because the general rule for present perfect is has/have been + past participle, the most common form of which ends in -ed). Again, this is not how the test works - they're not especially trying to trap non-native speakers. Ditto E.

So, yes, A is the best choice on this one. But I don't think the lessons learned here are really the best ones to study for the GMAT.
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by conquistador » Fri Oct 02, 2015 2:41 am
crackgmat007 wrote:The announced relocation of the hospital has been welcome news for the city, where economic growth has been stagnant for the past several years.

city, where economic growth has been stagnant
city whose economic growth has been stagnant
city where economic growth has been stagnated
city, whose economic growth as been stagnated
city, the site of stagnated economic growth
I feel city is metaphorical location and where is not preferred.
Also OE says that whose is not correct here.
can someone explain?
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by aorrick » Thu Oct 08, 2015 8:33 pm
Thinking too hard guys, the answer is A because B is missing the comma before whose. There's a big difference between "...the city, whose something..." and "...the city whose something..." which implies you can identify the single city with that property. Where and whose are both perfectly acceptable in this context and the GMAT doesn't test that distinction.

The car, which is red....

The car which is red....

In the first we are talking about a particular car which happens to have the property of being red. In the second we are identifying which car we are talking about. We can do that because there is only one red car.
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