Sentence Correction

Consumers may not think of household cleaning products to be hazardous substances, but many of them can be harmful to health, especially if they are used improperly.
(A) Consumers may not think of household cleaning products to be
(B) Consumers may not think of household cleaning products being
(C) A consumer may not think of their household cleaning products being
(D) A consumer may not think of household cleaning products as
(E) Household cleaning products may not be thought of, by consumers, as

OA - D

When reading non-underlined portion, I felt cleaning product should be subject to clearly help pronouns they and them. Can you help know why E is wrong and how D is good from pronoun part

Hi there,

D is definitely fine as far as pronouns are concerned, because the pronouns "them" and "they" are both plural like "household cleaning products," whereas "a consumer" is singular, so there's no danger of the pronoun's being construed as referring to it.

E is not grammatically *wrong*, but stylistically, it ranks pretty low, because it's very awkward and wordy to use the passive voice here ("household cleaning products may not be thought of by consumers as...") when we could instead use the far more concise active voice ("consumers may not think of household products as...").

Best,

E is awkward and moreover non of the options use IDIOM- think of X as Y.

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote:Hi there,

D is definitely fine as far as pronouns are concerned, because the pronouns "them" and "they" are both plural like "household cleaning products," whereas "a consumer" is singular, so there's no danger of the pronoun's being construed as referring to it.

Best,

How come them and they is not confusing with "hazardous substances"

Please see these two threads and my posts in them -- you've had some company with that question
These should answer it, I think.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/antecedent-p ... 84640.html
https://www.beatthegmat.com/pronoun-ambi ... 85308.html

Yes I think D is right.
Good explanation too.
Thanks

Hi, is 'idiom' a problem in A? to be instead of as?

The official idiom is "To think of X AS Y. So yes, A does have an idiomatic issue.

rishijhawar wrote:Hi, is 'idiom' a problem in A? to be instead of as?