Sentence Correction

Hey wcheng,

I would say yes, unfortunately. To be honest, it's not as complicated here as it looks. Whenever you get a pronoun like "that," just make sure you can plug something from the sentence in in a logical way. In the original sentence here, you'd get:

The performance of the iron and steel industry this year has been better than the performance of the iron and steel industry of any other year.

See the problem? What does it mean to say "The performance of the iron and steel industry of any other year"? That's not idiomatic.

In the correct sentence, there is an understood "it has been," but there isn't any mistaken pronoun:

The performance of the iron and steel industry this year has been better than it has been in any other year.

Your example would also be correct-ish. I'd prefer: "This year's performance has been better than that of any other year." Why? Because we have two possessives--this year's and of any other year. In your example, the second item in the comparison is possessed, but the first one isn't. I don't think it's a deal-breaker, but my version is slightly more parallel.

Hope that helps!

-t

Hey Nisagl,

Yes. Non-relative pronouns should generally be replaceable with a word/phrase already used in the sentence. However, be careful: "which" is a relative pronoun. Relative pronouns are simply modifiers, and there antecedent is defined by whatever they touch:

The house that I love is on fire.
The house, which is purple, is for sale.
The woman, whom I happen to love, is moving to the moon.

In these sentences, you don't need to replace the pronouns with anything, because that wouldn't make any sense!

That is a bit confusing, because it can be either a demonstrative pronoun or a relative pronoun. In the first of the three sample sentences listed above, you can see it operating as a relative pronoun. Here it is as a demonstrative pronoun:

I want that.
Give that to me.
The money made by the company's toy division was chump change next to that made by the defense division.

Demonstrative pronouns live by the rule that they should be replaceable by something already mentioned in the sentence.

Hope that helps!

-t

Hey Nisagl,

Absolutely right, in your explanation, and your example of a sentence that would be incorrect. Of course, as you noted, in your "incorrect" example, there is a possible legitimate read, if we are comparing the money made by the toy division to the money that the defense division just had already. So it would be slightly dependent on the meaning we were going for.

Chump change is a silly idiom (not tested on the GMAT!) meaning: "not much money":

"Investors at Merill Lynch were fined $100,000 for insider trading--big money to the average American, but chump change to the average employee of one of America's big banks."

-t