Consumers may not think - Pronoun reference

[gmatpart2]

Consumers may not think of household cleaning products to be hazardous substances, but many of them can be harmful to health, especially if they are used improperly.
(A) Consumers may not think of household cleaning products to be
(B) Consumers may not think of household cleaning products being
(C) A consumer may not think of their household cleaning products being
(D) A consumer may not think of household cleaning products as
(E) Household cleaning products may not be thought of, by consumers, as


I have query regarding option D, which is the correct answer -
In the second half of the sentence, followed by the conjunction 'but', 'many of them' seems to refer to 'cleaning products'. However, 'many of them' is the subject in the second clause.

As per the rule, subject of the second clause should refer to the subject of the first clause. Here the subject of the first clause is 'consumers', which goes against the result.

Also, please explain how is E incorrect?

[Brian@VeritasPrep]

Good question - and I should point out that this question is from a healthy 10+ years ago so it may not be fully reflective of today's GMAT.

The problems with E are a little more stylistic than binary. It:

-Uses the passive voice
-Ends the object with a preposition (which isn't technically *wrong* but it's awkward)
-Inserts the modifier "by consumers" in a pretty clumsy fashion

D, by contrast, is direct. The active subject "a consumer" leads and fixes the glaring pronoun reference error from the original sentence.

As far as the pronoun structure in D...it's definitely not wrong. You'd definitely be able to say things like "I thought I'd struggle on the verbal section, but it was actually easier than I expected." - where "it", the subject of the second clause, refers to the object of the first. So that's not at all grounds for dismissal of choice D. And if you're comparing D and E directly, D is cleaner and more direct...I wouldn't make "passive voice" or "clumsy construction" your primary decision points, but if you're between D and E, E has a lot more to be skeptical about.

Here's a previous discussion on this same question that may help, too: https://www.beatthegmat.com/verbal-revie ... 86160.html