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Several years ago the diet industry

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by aspirant2011 » Sat May 07, 2011 9:59 pm
Several years ago the diet industry introduced a variety of appetite suppressants, but some of these drugs caused stomach disorders severe enough to have them banned by the Food and Drug Administration.

(A) stomach disorders severe enough to have them
(B) stomach disorders that were severe enough so they were
(C) stomach disorders of such severity so as to be
(D) such severe stomach disorders that they were
(E) such severe stomach disorders as to be

[spoiler]OA: In D isn't "they" ambiguous[/spoiler]
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by Target2009 » Sat May 07, 2011 10:28 pm
IMO - D
You are right "Here THEY can refer to stomach disorders or drugs ". But all other choices are having other issues and ambiguity is not absolute rule to cross of option. So we still can go with D.
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Sun May 08, 2011 1:46 am
whats wrong with A?
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Pranay
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by Target2009 » Sun May 08, 2011 2:57 am
bubbliiiiiiii wrote:whats wrong with A?
@Pranay: "A" also has referent issue for "them" but to me "enough to have them" seems to be less preferable to "such ..that" construction in "D".
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by aspirant2011 » Sun May 08, 2011 8:51 am
Hi Target2009,

whats wrong with option C.......... I chose C because I found "them" to be ambiguous in option D :-( and also in option C idiom "so x as to be y" is being used
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by Target2009 » Sun May 08, 2011 10:29 am
aspirant2011 wrote:Hi Target2009,

whats wrong with option C.......... I chose C because I found "them" to be ambiguous in option D :-( and also in option C idiom "so x as to be y" is being used
SUCH...SO AS TO BE... Seems u missed Such.
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by aspirant2011 » Sun May 08, 2011 10:55 am
yup :-)........thanks target2009
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sun May 08, 2011 5:50 pm
Here's the important thing to remember about pronoun ambiguity: it's a style issue, not a grammar issue. So, if you have to choose between two choices, both of which are grammatically correct but one of which is ambiguous, go with the non-ambiguous choice.

However, when all the choices contain the same level of ambiguity, you can completely ignore the issue. On this particular question none of the choices make it explicitly clear that "banned" refers to the suppressants, so ambiguity is a non-issue. Remember, getting rid of the pronoun without replacing it with a better reference word doesn't fix the problem (which is why (C) isn't any less ambiguous than the other choices).

There have definitely been real GMAT questions that used ambiguous pronouns; in each such case, the parent noun was clear from the context of the sentence. In most cases a previous pronoun in the sentence makes it clear to what the latter phrase is referring (in this question, the pronoun "these" sets the precedent for "they" to refer back to the suppressants).
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