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pronouns

by Deepthi Subbu » Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:31 am
After the jury gave the decision that the defendant was guilty , some of its members started questioning their decision making process.

a. same as the underlined part
b.their members started questioning their
c.their members started questioning his or her
d.its members started questioning his/her



I understand the jury is a collective noun and hence the members of the jury can be written as its members , but what does
the their in ' questioning their' refer to ??

I am surprised to see the OA is A
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by anshumishra » Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:23 pm
Deepthi Subbu wrote:After the jury gave the decision that the defendant was guilty , some of its members started questioning their decision making process.

a. same as the underlined part
b.their members started questioning their
c.their members started questioning his or her
d.its members started questioning his/her



I understand the jury is a collective noun and hence the members of the jury can be written as its members , but what does
the their in ' questioning their' refer to ??

I am surprised to see the OA is A
"their" refers to "members" of the Jury.
So, suppose if "A","B" and "C" are the members of the jury, "A" is questioning the decision making process of jury's members (B & C).

I agree one might think that "A" is questioning his/her own decision making process, and that should have been made a little bit more clear.

Thanks
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by ikaplan » Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:45 pm
The parallelism issue makes answer choice A correct in this sentence:

jury (singular) --> its

members (plural) ---> their
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by Jim@Grockit » Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:17 pm
Deepthi Subbu wrote:After the jury gave the decision that the defendant was guilty , some of its members started questioning their decision making process.

a. same as the underlined part
b.their members started questioning their
c.their members started questioning his or her
d.its members started questioning his/her



I understand the jury is a collective noun and hence the members of the jury can be written as its members , but what does
the their in ' questioning their' refer to ??

I am surprised to see the OA is A
Also keep in mind that in British English, it's much more common to use plurals of collective nouns (The jury gave their verdict); the GMAT tests American English.
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