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Agatha Christie

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by Dean Jones » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:36 am
Hi Friends,

I am having problems in answering the following question. Please help.

Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in
one of Christie's most famous books.

"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery
novels
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as
inspiration for several of her mystery novels
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their
travel into several of her mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her
mystery novels

OA after some discussion.
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by GmatKiss » Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:00 pm
Between E and D
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by rohangupta83 » Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:06 pm
imo B

Agatha Christie's travels with her husband..... wrong

D changes the meaning
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by jainnikhil02 » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:07 pm
imo D
Nikhil K Jain
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by vishubn » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:56 pm
Clearly E, Its evident it boils down to D/E.. D says "Together with"-- its distorting the meaning of the Sentence by saying both Agastha and her husband were inspired to write a book whereas in this case its agastha alone

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by vaibhavgupta » Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:27 am
Dean Jones wrote:Hi Friends,

I am having problems in answering the following question. Please help.

Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in
one of Christie's most famous books.

"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery
novels
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as
inspiration for several of her mystery novels
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their
travel into several of her mystery novels
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her
mystery novels

OA after some discussion.
IMO A..

Whats the OA?
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by saketk » Thu Oct 27, 2011 6:25 am
The answer cannot be D because her husband was not inspired by the travels.

A cannot be the answer because it suffers from ( totally in MGMAT terms) possessive poison

The correct Answer to this question is E because the "her" in the sentence has clear antecedent.
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by vaibhavgupta » Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:18 am
saketk wrote:The answer cannot be D because her husband was not inspired by the travels.

A cannot be the answer because it suffers from ( totally in MGMAT terms) possessive poison

The correct Answer to this question is E because the "her" in the sentence has clear antecedent.
Could you please explain the possessive poison?
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by saketk » Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:54 am
vaibhavgupta wrote:
saketk wrote:The answer cannot be D because her husband was not inspired by the travels.

A cannot be the answer because it suffers from ( totally in MGMAT terms) possessive poison

The correct Answer to this question is E because the "her" in the sentence has clear antecedent.
Could you please explain the possessive poison?

I copied the definition from MGMAT book -- (I am not sure if I am allowed to copy the exact paragraph here because the book is a copyright material even though I paid for it)

This is OPTION A: -

Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels.

the second "her" has no clear antecedent. Even though it is obvious that "her" is referring back to Agatha Christie. The sentence must be changed in order for it be Grammatically correct in GMAT.

We can re-write the option A --

Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired Agatha Christie to write several mystery novels..........


The rule is -- The possessive pronoun can refer back to possessive noun (Agatha Christie's in this case). But, the second "her" is object pronoun and the rule says -- subject and object pronouns may not refer back to possessive nouns. Subject and object pronoun can refer back to subject and object nouns.


I am not sure if this of any help but hope for the best.

Ron says -- this thing has not been tested on GMAT (the possessive pronoun) so we should lookout for other errors in the sentence [NOTE: -- these words here are not verbatim)

you can send him a PM for help.
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by smackmartine » Thu Oct 27, 2011 1:43 pm
IMO E

"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels (her should be Agatha Christie )
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery
novels (awkward as mystery novels are getting inspired)
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as
inspiration for several of her mystery novels (changes the meaning by saying that her husband is the cause )
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their
travel into several of her mystery novels (chages the meaning by saying her husband also got inspired..it's better to stick withe orignal meaning of the sentence)
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her
mystery novels
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by vaibhavgupta » Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:01 pm
smackmartine wrote:IMO E

"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery
novels (her should be Agatha Christie )
"¢ Agatha Christie used her travels with her archaeologist husband to inspire several mystery
novels (awkward as mystery novels are getting inspired)
"¢ Because her husband was an archaeologist, Agatha Christie was able to use their travels as
inspiration for several of her mystery novels (changes the meaning by saying that her husband is the cause )
"¢ Together with her archaeologist husband, Agatha Christie was inspired to incorporate their
travel into several of her mystery novels (chages the meaning by saying her husband also got inspired..it's better to stick withe orignal meaning of the sentence)
"¢ Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband served as inspiration for several of her
mystery novels
pls some one give the OA?
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by smackmartine » Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:48 pm
According to Ron's explanation OA seems to be E

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/aga ... t9229.html
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by CaptainHaddock » Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:29 am
IMO E.
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by Dean Jones » Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:36 pm
OA is E
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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 30, 2011 10:58 pm
i received a private message about this thread.

to the original poster: where did you get this question?
this is an extremely old version of this problem; we deactivated it almost 2 years ago. therefore, it must have been taken from some source that was not actually our website?

regarding "possessive poison" -- as it turns out, this is not something you will have to know for the test, and we are removing all references to it in the upcoming editions of our strategy guides.
so, the best advice regarding "possessive poison" is simply "ignore it and pretend you never even heard about it".

if you absolutely must read about it anyway, here's a link -- https://www.beatthegmat.com/thermometer- ... tml#260416 -- but, be forewarned that reading that discussion will probably produce unnecessary confusion.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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