Sentence Correction

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for home owners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings- can plunge or even disappear.

Isn't "they" ambiguous? The OG says its not and clearly refers to depressed property values. How do you decide when a pronoun reference is ambiguous and when its not.

I am having major trouble in such kind of problems.

Please help.

Thanks.

punitkaur wrote:While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for home owners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings- can plunge or even disappear.

Isn't "they" ambiguous? The OG says its not and clearly refers to depressed property values. How do you decide when a pronoun reference is ambiguous and when its not.

I am having major trouble in such kind of problems.

Please help.

Thanks.

There is a little known rule that I remember from Ron Purewal.
The pronoun (mostly subject pronoun) in the second clause (in our case 'they') is presumed to refer to the subject of the previous clause if the the tense, etc agrees.

You can PM Ron to get more info.

rgds
-V

punitkaur wrote:While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for home owners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings- can plunge or even disappear.

Isn't "they" ambiguous? The OG says its not and clearly refers to depressed property values. How do you decide when a pronoun reference is ambiguous and when its not.

I am having major trouble in such kind of problems.

Please help.

Thanks.

I used to have similar doubts but I started resolving these ambiguities logically.
If we try to understand the structure of the sentence the pronoun "they" can refer to either "depressed property values" or "some large investors".
Now try to understand the meaning of the sentence. In the present context "some large investors" can not potentially devastate "home owners". Hence, "they" can only refer back to "depressed property values" and there is no pronoun ambiguity.

Regards,
Nikhil.

just identify the subject of the sentence..and you will not have any trouble with pronouns..

what is the sentence "talking" about? identify that.

Thanks Ron. I think I understand the rule better now.

Earlier, when reading a sentence, if I found more than one noun followed by a pronoun , I was blindly focussing on the sentence structure rather than checking whether the sentence was already making sense or not.

In other words, I was trying to apply the rule taking for granted that if 2 nouns were followed by a pronoun reference[without checking for subject etc], I thought it to be ambiguous. I was not paying attention to the meaning of the sentence.

After reading the two points you provided and going back to solve the problem stated in this post, it makes sense to me that this problem is too simple to get confused , as you stated.

I hope I will be able to apply the explanation you provided to other complex problems and see if I understood things correctly now.

Thanks!

Ron is the master of GMAT!

riteshbindal wrote:Ron is the master of GMAT!

I wholeheartedly agree!

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!!

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!!

I think Ron's rule applies here correctly:
In both C and D, chambers and tourists are acting as subjects.
Let me rephrase C and D.....

C--> the chambers were closed to visitors becoz tourists (subject doing some action) were exhaling.....
D--> the chambers were closed to visitors becoz of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising (again tourists doing some action)

E-->tourists is part of prepositional phrase and cannot be a subject. So them clearly modifies "the chambers."

Experts, correct me if I am not

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 parallelisum problem as well and Option E is the OA "the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing ".

Thanks group for enlightment on this anticedent rule of Subject preference.

SmarpanGamt wrote:

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 parallelisum problem as well and Option E is the OA "the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing ".

Thanks group for enlightment on this anticedent rule of Subject preference.

Please correct me if I am wrong but this is a simple case of a subordinate clause...

https://www.chompchomp.com/terms/subordinateclause.htm