Sentence Correction Gem!

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zuleron: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 223; Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:50 pmFollowed by: 4 members; Location: Philly, USA; Thanked: 76 times; GMAT Score:750

by zuleron » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:55 am

What would the GMAT think of this sentence that I recently read in non-GMAT material?

All France believes her government is on her side; England too ought believe that hers is on hers.

Talk about pronoun ambiguity!! LOL!

Still, methinks it is technically correct, if a little poetic and archaic, BUT what would the GMAT think?

Any thoughts?...

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:55 am

capnx: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 268; Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:22 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times; GMAT Score:700

by capnx » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:02 pm

what is the last "hers" referring back to? England's "her side"? in which case using "hers" would be wrong. It's not "hers side" so there's a lack of parallelism.

Even if "hers" can be used to replace "her side", the two "hers" pronouns refer to different items, so yes, ambiguity kicks in as well.

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zuleron: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 223; Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:50 pmFollowed by: 4 members; Location: Philly, USA; Thanked: 76 times; GMAT Score:750

by zuleron » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:37 am

The first "hers" refers to the "English government" and the second "hers" refers to "England's side". For me it was very clear what each "hers" pronoun was refering to. Would the GMAT insist that, by rule, the same pronoun form can't be used to refer to two different items even if it is used twice?

Also, I wonder if your parralelism point regarding the 2nd "hers" is correct because the sentence says "England too" so it is clear that the 2nd "hers" can only be refering to England and by repeating "her side" again would be wordy???? In a strange way saying All France believes her government is on her side; England too ought to believe that hers is on her side "sounds" even more confusung to me than the original sentence but would the GMAT insist on parralelism to this point?

Another question: Would the GMAT insist on using 'that' after believe? i.e. "All France believes THAT her government..."?

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Stacey Koprince: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 2228; Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pmFollowed by: 694 members; Location: Montreal, Canada; Thanked: 639 times; GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:56 am

Interesting question. (Received a PM asking me to respond.)

I don't think the GMAT would give us something with this level of ambiguity (not as a correct answer, anyway!). Remember that they are not just in the business of writing prose; they are in the business of testing people, and they don't want to get sued for ambiguous questions (yes, that has happened before - testers have challenged questions they thought were unfair, ambiguous or flat-out wrong, and sometimes the testers have actually won!).

And, yes, the GMAT would insist on inserting the word "that" after "believes." Here's how we can tell:

All France believes her. Can we stop there and would it make sense? Sure: all France believes her (Susie, say).

But that's not what we're trying to say. We're trying to say that all France believes "her government is on her side," not just "her." So we need to insert "that" after believes - that indicates that we're about to give an entire clause that "all France believes," not just a single noun.

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