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While depressed property values...

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by Magellan » Fri May 09, 2008 4:18 am
While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear.

(A) they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
(B) they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
(C) for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
(D) for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
(E) it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose

OA is A

It seems to me that the pronoun 'they' has no clear antecedent. It can be either 'property values' or 'large investors' --> why isn't it a problem?

Source: OG10 (question 159)
Last edited by Magellan on Fri May 09, 2008 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by barron » Fri May 09, 2008 4:29 am
My answer is E

is this correct?

all others are elimnated because they and their doesn't have any clear antecedant
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by tar.goyal » Mon May 12, 2008 12:11 am
E is incorrect because it uses it(singular) to refer to depressed property values(plural).

if I go on eliminating the incorrect answers, I will mark all of them out.

Please suggest!
I have started to realize that I am the one!!!
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by tar.goyal » Mon May 12, 2008 12:11 am
E is incorrect because it uses it(singular) to refer to depressed property values(plural).

if I go on eliminating the incorrect answers, I will mark all of them out.

Please suggest!
I have started to realize that I am the one!!!
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by s_raizada » Mon May 12, 2008 1:18 pm
Magellan, you are absolutely right!

According to Eric or Stuart pronoun antecedent reference is not a grammar problem but a style problem.

The way I approach such sentences is like this
1. Is there a pronoun number agreement error? Both D and E have this problem so you can cross them out
2. Is meaning of the pronoun ambigous? For example in option B and C, they refers to depressed property values and thier refers to homowners. Therefore both options B and C are incorrect

This leaves us with option A and because it is a style problem so GMAT can live with it. In summary, it is lesser of the evils.
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Refer to this post

by pashadd » Sat Oct 04, 2008 12:22 am
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by phait » Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:42 am
hi
i wan t to reopen discussion on this thread..

if 'are calling' is a verb then why not are proposing and are suggesting appearing in the correct answer?[/quote]
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by balz11 » Mon Jul 16, 2012 11:11 pm
I think right answer would be 'They can potentially devastate homeowners,whose'
correct me if m wrong.
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