Secure Digital Music Initiative

[beater]

By developing the Secure Digital Music Initiative,the recording Industry associations of North America, Japan, and Europe hope to create a standardizied way of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet that will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates who copy and distribute digital music illegally

a)of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet that will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

b) of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet and to protect copyright holders and foiling the many audion pirates copying and distributing

c) for distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet while it protects copyright holders and foils the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

d) to distribute songs and full recordings on the Internet while they will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates copying and distributing

e) to distribute songs and full lenght recordings on the Internet and it will protect copyright holders and foiling the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

A

[sjd00d]

IMO A.

D, E: No clear antecedent to they and it
C. for distributing..unidiomatic
B. "and to protect"..doesn't make sense ..they are creating the standard to protect blah blah

[beater]

Are the pronouns They/IT referring to associations?

[logitech]

By developing the Secure Digital Music Initiative,the recording Industry associations of North America, Japan, and Europe hope to create a standardizied way of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet that will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates who copy and distribute digital music illegally

a)of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet that will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

b) of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet and to protect copyright holders and foiling the many audion pirates copying and distributing

c) for distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet while it protects copyright holders and foils the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

d) to distribute songs and full recordings on the Internet while they will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates copying and distributing

e) to distribute songs and full lenght recordings on the Internet and it will protect copyright holders and foiling the many audio pirates who copy and distribute

This is a good example for "Exceptions to the Touch Rule", which is explained in 3rd Edition MGMAT SC guide on Page 104.

A mission criticalk modifier falls between!

By developing the Secure Digital Music Initiative,the recording Industry associations of North America, Japan, and Europe hope to create a standardizied way of distributing songs and full length recordings on the Internet that will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates who copy and distribute digital music illegally

[beater]

Could someone please explain as to why the pronoun They is ambiguous in option D. What do you think are the possible referents for They?

I'm just trying to clarify my understanding of pronoun ambiguity. Thanks!

[Karen]

Let's plug D into the context of the original sentence:

By developing the Secure Digital Music Initiative,the recording Industry associations of North America, Japan, and Europe hope to create a standardizied way to distribute songs and full recordings on the Internet while they will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates copying and distributing digital music illegally.

The pronoun 'they' is probably ambiguous -- GMAC isn't completely clear about when it considers pronominal reference to be ambiguous; in this case we do have more than one plural noun (associations, songs and full recordings) before the pronoun (thus tending to make it ambiguous), but one of the plural nouns is a subject, thus in the same grammatical role as the pronoun 'they', so parallelism would tend to disambiguate the reference. But it would probably be considered ambiguous.

The bigger problem with D is that it changes the meaning, and then even if you decide that the meaning of D is the one that the sentence is going for, the choice of verb tense is *still* wrong: "while they will protect" is not correct regardless of what you think the sentence is trying to say. The change of meaning is this: D no longer says that protecting copyright holders and foiling audio pirates is part of what the "standardized way" will do; it says that these are things that the associations will do at the same time as they create the standardized way.

And then even if you thought that was what the sentence should say, it's still wrong: "while they will protect copyright holders and foil the many audio pirates copying and distributing digital music illegally" is a time clause -- a clause that serves to describe how an action relates to another action in time. Those always use present tense, not the future 'will', as in these examples:

Correct: When I get home, I'm going to take a shower.
Incorrect: When I will get home, I'm going to take a shower.

Correct: I will listen to the CD while I cook dinner.
Incorrect: I will listen to the CD while I will cook dinner.

[schumi_gmat]

C,D,E has a pronoun error. No refferent.

In B, there is parallelism between to create.....and to protect.....but the second "and" does not signify the list or start any independent clause.

In A, Apart from mission critical modifier exception rule, there is no error.

Hence A

[beater]

Thanks a lot Karen - you rock!

Option D certainly changes the meaning, but I wasn't sure what made THEY an ambiguous pronoun