Pronoun ambiguity- Manhattan SC guide

Hi,
When you are in doubt about pronoun reference, go for the meaning of the sentence. If their refers to experiments sentence doesn't make sense.

Hey Sai,

The good thing about SC on the GMAT is that your job is always only to pick the best option -- not to determine whether that best option is actually perfect.

Your sentences highlight the imperfect correspondence between logical clarity and grammatical clarity. Logically the pronoun referents are clear in both of your sentences, but grammatically, you're right, they're ambiguous in both cases.

Whereas a grammatical ERROR (such as a subject-verb clash or the use of a singular pronoun in reference to a plural antecedent) is NEVER okay, a grammatical *ambiguity* (which is not the same thing as an error) can be let slide oftentimes as long as the meaning is clear.

On the GMAT, if you had as options versions of these sentences that were clear not only logically but also grammatically--and if these options weren't marred by any other grammatical errors--those would certainly be your best options. However, if no such options are present, it's likely that all the other answer choices will feature actual grammatical ERRORS, and in that case, both of these sentences will be acceptable.

Hope that helps!

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote:Hey Sai,

The good thing about SC on the GMAT is that your job is always only to pick the best option -- not to determine whether that best option is actually perfect.

Your sentences highlight the imperfect correspondence between logical clarity and grammatical clarity. Logically the pronoun referents are clear in both of your sentences, but grammatically, you're right, they're ambiguous in both cases.

Whereas a grammatical ERROR (such as a subject-verb clash or the use of a singular pronoun in reference to a plural antecedent) is NEVER okay, a grammatical *ambiguity* (which is not the same thing as an error) can be let slide oftentimes as long as the meaning is clear.

On the GMAT, if you had as options versions of these sentences that were clear not only logically but also grammatically, those would certainly be your best options. However, if no such options are present, it's likely that all the other answer choices will feature actual grammatical ERRORS, and in that case, both of these sentences will be acceptable.

Hope that helps!

Thanks a lot Ashley - it helps to me NOT to strike off any grammatically ambigous sentences on first sight.

As a strategy I will strike off the grammatically wrong sentences and just keep the ambiguous sentences for the final shoot out...a good strategy?

e-gmat,

Thanks a lot..that was really helpful

winnerhere wrote:
As a strategy I will strike off the grammatically wrong sentences and just keep the ambiguous sentences for the final shoot out...a good strategy?

Yes, a very good strategy indeed!