Confused regarding: The local chapter of the Bike Riders’

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This is a question posted by Master GMAT and i had a query regarding the same. Can some one please clarify:

The question is:
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The local chapter of the Bike Riders' Association has repeatedly railed against the municipal authorities, protesting that requiring them to wear bike helmets, even on off-road cycling paths, limit their civil liberties.


(A) requiring them to wear bike helmets, even on off-road cycling paths, limit their civil liberties
(B) to require that they wear bike helmets, even when cycling off-road, limits their civil liberties
(C ) the requirements of wearing bike helmets, even on off-road cycling paths, is a limitation on cyclists' civil liberties
(D) requiring cyclists to wear bike helmets, even when cycling off-road, limits their civil liberties
(E) requiring helmets even though during off-road cycling, limits their civil liberties
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The answer is D. I could make it by eliminating the rest but i have a conceptual confusion:

(D) requiring cyclists to wear bike helmets, even when cycling off-road, limits their
civil liberties
-> Does the presence of "their" not makes the reference ambigious as it can refer to both Cyclist as well as Municipal authorities.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by vineeshp » Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:12 am
requiring cyclists to wear bike helmets, even on off-road cycling paths, limit their civil liberties.
I guess there is no ambiguity.

Experts! Where are you when we need you :D
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)

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by ajmoney09 » Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:25 am
The sentence makes sense without the ", even when cycling off-road," so pretend that was not there. now read the sentence:

The local chapter of the Bike Riders' Association has repeatedly railed against the municipal authorities, protesting that requiring cyclists to wear bike helmets limits their civil liberties.

So here you can clearly see the "their" referencing the Cyclist.

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by atulmangal » Sat Apr 09, 2011 12:12 pm
IMO D is correct

In this sentence the key word is the use of THAT after protesting...THAT initiates a relative clause so the clause must contain a verb

Op A---> THEM incorrectly refers to authorities

OP B---> protesting THAT to require THAT...two relative clause so need two verbs...one for "to require" and one for pronoun THEY...

"To require"----> limits
"THEY"-----> wear

Means the sentence can be rephrased as "To require limits their civil liberties"...NONSENSE

Also, THEY is wrong...Authorities...wrong

Op C---> seems tempting to me at first glance because of the use of proper noun:-
the requirements of but the verb IS is incorrect for Plural requirements

Op D--> correct...noun phrase " requiring cyclists to wear bike helmets" correctly refer to singular LIMITS,

About the use of THEIR..so its correct as we have a relative clause initiated by THAT and in that relative clause cyclists is the only possible logical antecedent for THEIR.

Op E---->In this choice use of THEIR is incorrect...no logically possible antecedent exists in the relative clause...it can not refer to helmets as in that case the sentence has no logical meaning.

Hope this help

Thanks

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