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Small Cars manufacturing

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Small Cars manufacturing

by goelmohit2002 » Wed May 06, 2009 11:39 am
Hi All,

In the below question OA is [spoiler]"B"[/spoiler]....Can somebody please help me understand what is wrong in option [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] below ? The explanation said "their" is an illogical personal pronoun choice...so [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] is wrong. Can somebody please tell me why "their" is wrong in option [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] ?

a) Today’s technology allows manufacturers to make small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in "their" production history.
b) Today’s technology allows manufacturers to make small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in production history.


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by rseeker2 » Wed May 06, 2009 7:25 pm
The sentence seems to be talking about car production in general. Nowhere in history had that happened.

And I also felt the usage of 'their' is redundant... because when it is the manufacturers who produce the cars, why explicitly mention 'their production' , when it is themselves who do it?
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by goelmohit2002 » Fri May 15, 2009 9:21 am
rseeker2 wrote:The sentence seems to be talking about car production in general. Nowhere in history had that happened.

And I also felt the usage of 'their' is redundant... because when it is the manufacturers who produce the cars, why explicitly mention 'their production' , when it is themselves who do it?
IMO here "their" refers to cars and not producers. Kindly tell if I am missing something here. In that case, can someone please help me in clarifying why the usage of "their" makes the choice "A" wrong.

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by bluementor » Sat May 16, 2009 4:07 am
goelmohit2002 wrote:
rseeker2 wrote:The sentence seems to be talking about car production in general. Nowhere in history had that happened.

And I also felt the usage of 'their' is redundant... because when it is the manufacturers who produce the cars, why explicitly mention 'their production' , when it is themselves who do it?
IMO here "their" refers to cars and not producers. Kindly tell if I am missing something here. In that case, can someone please help me in clarifying why the usage of "their" makes the choice "A" wrong.

Thanks
Mohit
I believe the problem with A is that you have two possible antecedents: manufacturers and small cars. This ambiguity is cleared in B by talking about production history in general, i.e. neither manufacturer's production history specifically nor small car's.

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Re: Small Cars manufacturing

by rahulg83 » Sat May 16, 2009 6:48 am
goelmohit2002 wrote:Hi All,

In the below question OA is [spoiler]"B"[/spoiler]....Can somebody please help me understand what is wrong in option [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] below ? The explanation said "their" is an illogical personal pronoun choice...so [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] is wrong. Can somebody please tell me why "their" is wrong in option [spoiler]"A"[/spoiler] ?

a) Today’s technology allows manufacturers to make small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in "their" production history.
b) Today’s technology allows manufacturers to make small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in production history.


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Mohit
I think u only gave the answer by quoting their..
Its ambiguous here, which is not the case with B
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by goelmohit2002 » Sat May 16, 2009 8:06 am
But how can their refer to Manufacturers....manufactures cannot have any production history.... :-)...
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by goelmohit2002 » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:21 am
Experts kindly share your opinion !!!
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by scoobydooby » Sun Aug 02, 2009 12:18 pm
their refers to cars. manufacturers cannot have production history, niether can technology. only cars can have production history. "their" is not necessary in the sentence
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by russland » Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:08 pm
I think the first answer-choice should be small cars that are more fuel-efficient than they were at any time in their

And the question is supposed to be:

Today's technology allows manufacturers to make small cars more fuel-efficient now than at any time in their production history.

A. small cars more fuel-efficient now than at any time in their
B. small cars that are more fuel-efficient than they were at any time in their
C. small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in
D. more fuel-efficient small cars than those at any other time in their
E. more fuel-efficient small cars now than at any time in
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by goelmohit2002 » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:28 am
I guess D is wrong because it contains...."fuel efficient small cars"....so "those" refers to complete noun phrase....which is wrong....

Can someone please tell is there any flaw in my reasoning ?
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by scoobydooby » Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:54 am
D is also wrong because it does not have "now". we are comparing with the situation now with the situation then. so we need the "now". "those" is uneccessary. also D changes the meaning from the intended "degree of fuel efficiency" to "number of fuel efficient cars"
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