Question

anshulagarwal12 wrote: Each of Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson. Pauline Pfeiffer. Martha Gelhom. and Mary Welsh --were strong and interesting women , very different from the often pallid women who populate his novels.

(C) Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary Welsh--were all
strong and interesting women,
(D) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary
Welsh--each a wife of Hemingway, was

Here,in the sentence "his" is used and since in choice C, it cant refer to Hemingway, D is the best option available. However, answer is C. Why ?

his can refer to both Hemingway's and Hemingway.

vk_vinayak wrote:

anshulagarwal12 wrote: Each of Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson. Pauline Pfeiffer. Martha Gelhom. and Mary Welsh --were strong and interesting women , very different from the often pallid women who populate his novels.

(C) Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary Welsh--were all
strong and interesting women,
(D) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary
Welsh--each a wife of Hemingway, was

Here,in the sentence "his" is used and since in choice C, it cant refer to Hemingway, D is the best option available. However, answer is C. Why ?

his can refer to both Hemingway's and Hemingway.

i agree with VK "partially"

his will refer to Hemingway's
him will refer to Hemingway (the person himself)

eg1: Marco Polo's Travels , which took him/Marco 12 years to complete, are documented in his work

here we cant use HIM because we dont have "Marco Polo" himself as a subject; rather Marco Polo's.
Notice in the second half we can use "his" because it has a clear referent Marco Polo's.


eg2: Jane's first novel was so well received that she/Jane decided to write a sequel

here we will have to bring in "Jane" in answe choice. she is a pronoun which has to have a refernt and clearly Jane has not been used before in the sentence.

AJWILL wrote:

vk_vinayak wrote:

anshulagarwal12 wrote: Each of Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson. Pauline Pfeiffer. Martha Gelhom. and Mary Welsh --were strong and interesting women , very different from the often pallid women who populate his novels.

(C) Hemingway's wives--Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary Welsh--were all
strong and interesting women,
(D) Strong and interesting women—Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhom, and Mary
Welsh--each a wife of Hemingway, was

Here,in the sentence "his" is used and since in choice C, it cant refer to Hemingway, D is the best option available. However, answer is C. Why ?

his can refer to both Hemingway's and Hemingway.

i agree with VK "partially"

his will refer to Hemingway's
him will refer to Hemingway (the person himself)

eg1: Marco Polo's Travels , which took him/Marco 12 years to complete, are documented in his work

here we cant use HIM because we dont have "Marco Polo" himself as a subject; rather Marco Polo's.
Notice in the second half we can use "his" because it has a clear referent Marco Polo's.


eg2: Jane's first novel was so well received that she/Jane decided to write a sequel

here we will have to bring in "Jane" in answe choice. she is a pronoun which has to have a refernt and clearly Jane has not been used before in the sentence.

You're right. What I wrote was also correct, but I didn't write the full rule.

Basically the rule is: Non-possessive pronouns (he, she, it, him, ... etc) can't stand for Possessive nouns. (NOTE: Reverse is not correct)

his (a possessive pronoun) can refer to Hemingway (a non-possessive noun): Hemingway broke his car.

Earlier, MGMAT used to have a section called 'Possessive poison' that described this rule, but they've removed the section because this rule has never been a deciding factor in OG.