Hello Everyone!
Let's tackle this question, one problem at at time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! To begin, let's take a closer look at the original question, and highlight any major differences we spot in orange:
Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
A. Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
B. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.
C. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
D. Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.
E. Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
After a quick glance over the options, we have a few areas we can focus on. However, this is a question where the entire sentence is underlined, so we need to treat this differently than we do other questions! Whenever you see a question with the entire sentence underlined, there are a few areas you should pay attention to first to narrow down your options:
1. Modifiers
2. Parallelism
3. Meaning
4. Structure
Let's start with #3 on our list: meaning. There is also another glaring difference we see throughout each of the options: PRONOUNS! There are a LOT of pronouns in these sentences, so let's do a quick check to make sure all the pronouns have clear antecedents, and rule out any that don't:
A. Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
first "it" = refers to "course of action" --> OK
second "it" = doesn't refer to anything, so we call this a "dummy pronoun" --> WRONG
"them" = refers to "signs of incipient trouble" --> OK
B. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.
"one" = unclear; could refer to either "An executive" or "a course of action" --> WRONG
"ones" = misleading; changes meaning from referring to "signs of incipient trouble" to some other signs we haven't mentioned yet --> WRONG
C. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
"they" = unclear; could refer to "An executive," "a course of action," or "signs of incipient trouble" --> WRONG
"it" = refers back to "a course of action" --> OK
D. Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.
"it" = refers to "a course of action" --> OK
first "them" = refers to "Executives" --> WRONG (see below)
second "them" = refers to "signs" --> WRONG (see below)
So why are both "them" pronouns wrong? Because placing two of the same pronoun so close together is confusing to readers. It's too ambiguous which "them" is referring to which antecedent. Yes, you could do the hard work and figure it out, but reading shouldn't require the reader to do the heavy lifting.
E. Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
"one" = refers to "a course of action" --> OK
"them" = refers to "signs of incipient trouble" --> OK
Well there you have it - option E is the correct choice! It's the only sentence that used clear pronouns.
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
