OG Houseowners

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GmatKiss: Legendary Member; Posts: 2789; Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:19 amFollowed by: 43 members; Location: Chennai, India; Thanked: 206 times; GMAT Score:640

by GmatKiss » Sun Aug 28, 2011 10:45 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
Please help in breaking this down!

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sun Aug 28, 2011 10:45 am

maihuna: Legendary Member; Posts: 1578; Joined: Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:49 amFollowed by: 9 members; Thanked: 82 times; GMAT Score:720

by maihuna » Sun Aug 28, 2011 10:52 am

values require plural they so D/E out. depressed values r not direct agent so B is out. because is used for a reason, we require only a relative pronoun to refer back to the subject so C is out.

GmatKiss wrote: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
Please help in breaking this down!

Charged up again to beat the beast

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mankey: Legendary Member; Posts: 627; Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:12 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 4 times

by mankey » Sun Oct 30, 2011 8:03 pm

Will we also consider here that "can" and "potentially" are redudant?

Someone please help crack this one.

Thanks.

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Brian@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1031; Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:23 pmFollowed by: 255 members; Location: Malibu, CA; Thanked: 716 times; GMAT Score:750

by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:19 pm

This is a case in which I think the idea of "decision points" is really helpful.

"Whose" is a relative modifier, and must modify the word adjacent to it. That should tip you off - is "whose" justified here?

In A and E it's used properly to modify "homeowners" (although E has a massive problem with "it" as the pronoun with no singular subject before it). So even though we can't use it to eliminate a choice, the fact that it is there shows us something. Its job is to provide direct clarity - to show that the modifier (equity...) has to clearly modify "homeowners". In the other choices that don't use "whose", the pronoun "their" is used - and "their" really refers back to the subject of the sentence, "values". That's illogical. "Values" don't have life savings or equity. So we can eliminate B C and D based on the use of "their" and not "whose".

Relative modifiers are great decision points - they have such a specific use that they offer terrific insight when they're used, either properly or improperly.

Brian Galvin
GMAT Instructor
Chief Academic Officer
Veritas Prep

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patanjali.purpose: Legendary Member; Posts: 784; Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:51 amFollowed by: 12 members; Thanked: 114 times

by patanjali.purpose » Mon Oct 31, 2011 5:26 pm

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:This is a case in which I think the idea of "decision points" is really helpful.

"Whose" is a relative modifier, and must modify the word adjacent to it. That should tip you off - is "whose" justified here?

In A and E it's used properly to modify "homeowners" (although E has a massive problem with "it" as the pronoun with no singular subject before it). So even though we can't use it to eliminate a choice, the fact that it is there shows us something. Its job is to provide direct clarity - to show that the modifier (equity...) has to clearly modify "homeowners". In the other choices that don't use "whose", the pronoun "their" is used - and "their" really refers back to the subject of the sentence, "values". That's illogical. "Values" don't have life savings or equity. So we can eliminate B C and D based on the use of "their" and not "whose".

Relative modifiers are great decision points - they have such a specific use that they offer terrific insight when they're used, either properly or improperly.

Thanks Brain. Great insight.

Could you suggest what other decision points we should keep in mind. Secondly, why do you think 'their' should refer to subject of the sentence.

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