tnaim wrote:Hi Ron,
I am still not able to apply the rules you mentioned in this post on the following question from the OG GMAT 12th edition.
In late 1997, the chambers inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza were closed to visitors for cleaning and repair due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raised its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing on the walls.
Options C,D, and E read:
(C) because tourists were exhaling moisture, which
had raised the humidity within them to levels
such that salt from the stone would crystallize
(D) because of moisture that was exhaled by
tourists raising the humidity within them to levels
so high as to make the salt from the stone
crystallize
(E) because moisture exhaled by tourists had raised
the humidity within them to such levels that salt
from the stone was crystallizing.
I have provided choices C,D, and E only because they're the ones relevant to the rule you explained (choices A and B were clear to me). OG says that them in choices C and D is ambiguous while it clearly refers to chambers in E. the chambers is a subject in the passive construction (the chambers inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza were closed) while I couldn't classify "within them" as a subject in either C,D, or E. Would you please help me clarify why E is clear and how C, and D are not. How can apply your rule in this case? does "within them" play the rule of the subject here?
your help is greatly appreciated!I have spent lots and lots of hours just trying to understand the rules of pronouns and ambiguity of antecedent. Your answer will help me a lot!!
this is a pretty good example of a situation that satisfies my #2 above:
as i said up there
if i see (2), i DON'T necessarily eliminate, unless i have literally exhausted ALL other avenues of eliminating answers.
in this problem, i would not even bother considering this pronoun issue, because there are still other avenues of solution remaining.
in particular, there is still a very well-defined parallelism issue: the non-underlined part contains "fungus was growing", so we need the underlined part to contain "salt was crystallizing". this is enough to eliminate (c) and (d), leaving (e).
i really meant what i said in that post -- the OG is not terribly consistent in its rules about pronoun ambiguity, so, unless you're looking at an extremely clear-cut case, you should ALWAYS look at anything else you can get your hands on first.
here's an alternative rule, which is much simpler to think about:
if you see an AMBIGUOUS PRONOUN that is SPLIT AGAINST A SPECIFIC NOUN -- i.e., it is replaced by a specific noun in other answer choices -- then you can probably feel safe in eliminating it.
if the ambiguous pronoun is
NOT split against a specific noun, then you may want to think twice about eliminating it.
here, there's no specific noun in opposition to "them" (i.e., you don't see "them" vs. "those chambers" in other choices). so the ambiguity is not an issue worth thinking about.
, as you stated.
