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:( pronoun error

by divya23 » Tue May 31, 2011 2:56 am
For parents, a benefit of coeducation at both the elementary and high school levels is the assurance that as a child matures, their social skills improve as well.

1.the assurance that as a child matures, their

2.the assurance that as children mature, their

3.to assure that when a child matures, his or her

4.to assure that when children mature, their

5.assuring that as children mature, their

[spoiler]OA = 2
My doubt is their can refer to either the parents or the child ???[/spoiler]
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by itsmebharat » Tue May 31, 2011 3:35 am
Why C is incorrect, can anyone explain,

as for as their is concerned it should be referring to children not parents as the social skills of child will improve not parents,


Re-edit : please correct me if I am wrong, my understanding is as follows :
ohhh... got it ..

For parents - plural ,
a benefit of coeducation ... is the assurance that as children - should be plural mature,
their social skills improve as well.
Last edited by itsmebharat on Tue May 31, 2011 3:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
I am not an Expert, please feel free to suggest if there is an error.
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Tue May 31, 2011 3:40 am
divya23 wrote:My doubt is their can refer to either the parents or the child ???
When there are two or more possible antecedents for a pronoun, it should refer to the nearest antecendent.

Thus, their refers to children in this case.
Regards,

Pranay
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by hardikm » Tue May 31, 2011 7:34 am
For parents, a benefit of coeducation at both the elementary and high school levels is the assurance that as a child matures, their social skills improve as well.

A: Their refers to parents instead of children
B: correct
C,D,E: Lacks parallelism X is Y ( X and Y should have same form)
In this case,
X = a benefit of coeducation at both the elementary and high school levels
Y = the assurance that as a child matures, their
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Tue May 31, 2011 8:50 am
Hey divya23:

Good question about "their". There are indeed multiple plural nouns, but you'll find that quite a few sentences of more than 20 words or so will necessarily include multiple nouns. The standard for a pronoun error is "could this be considered confusing?", and I don't think that choice B runs afoul of that.

-Note that "for parents..." is a modifier at the start of the sentence, and it's separated by a comma. That means that it's a nonessential modifier. The sentence would mean the exact same thing without it. So "parents" is a nonessential part of the sentence and therefore really couldn't take the reference of a pronoun later.

-The position of "their" is part of a phrase that ties it really closely to "children" - it's "as children mature, their...". That "as" sets up a timeframe specific to the maturation process of children - it's pretty illogical that within that specific timeframe tied directly to the children something would happen to the parents, so if that was the point of the sentence the author would really have to introduce the parents as a separate noun. (e.g. "as children mature, their parents..." - and note here that "their" would still tie right back to the children)


So I guess in summary - one thing that people far too often overlook in SC problems is that the meaning and the logic of each sentence are of the highest importance. It's not a computer program in which you're trying to catch an extra parentheses or bracket - these sentences have meaning and you'll want to think that through as part of your analysis. Illogical meanings are to be eliminated, but if the meaning is clear and logical you may well find that a sentence uses two different tenses or has multiple plural nouns and one plural pronoun. The standard is "does this make logical sense", so keep that in mind as you analyze these.
Brian Galvin
GMAT Instructor
Chief Academic Officer
Veritas Prep

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