dominhtri1995 wrote:Hi Mike,
I have a question. Can you tell me "it" in D refer to what? I think it is unclear because we can assume that it might refer to "ground" , "judge", "ban".
Thanks,
Dear
dominhtri1995,
That's a great question. I would say that the pronoun "
it" refers unambiguously to the "
ban". First of all, "
it" couldn't possibly refer to the "
judge", because the judge is a person ---- we would need to use a personal pronoun, "
he" or "
she", for the judge.
The word "
ground"is trickier. There is no literal piece of ground discussed here. Here, the word "
ground" is used as an idiomatic expression ---- "
on grounds that" --- similar to the word "
means" in the expression "
by means of." We use an idiomatic expression such as this to convey something about our subject, but unless the subject is grammar itself, the idiomatic expression would not be the object or focus of our attention. Therefore, a pronoun would never refer to it.
Think of it this way. Every film has a director, but ordinarily, when the action of the film is in motion and characters are interacting, the actors are never shown on the film as interacting with the director, but the director is coordinating their action. You would not see the director on camera unless the film were a documentary about that director or about directors in general.
Similarly, idiomatic structures direct the logical flow of the sentence, but they are never the subject or the focus of attention, unless the subject of the sentence is grammar itself.
BTW, here's a free GMAT idiom ebook:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom-ebook/
What you asked here brought up a subtle and sophisticated point. Does all this make sense?
Mike
