simplyjat wrote:I did not notice it earlier, but E has pronoun reference problem. Their seems to refer eating habits.

just fyi: the gmat does NOT necessarily consider a construction such as that in choice (e) to be problematic.

get the og11 verbal supplement (the purple book) and look at problem 19, whose correct answer starts out with the following words: 'while depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they...'
note that this is exactly the same 'pronoun problem' that is used to strike answer (e) here, yet it is condoned by the gmat.

the apparent rule, then, is that a certain amount of pronoun ambiguity is tolerated, as long as there is clear grammatical parallelism between the pronoun and its preferred antecedent: in the OG problem partially quoted above and in choice (e) here, both the pronoun and the desired antecedent are the subject of their respective clauses.

therefore, either (d) or (e) can be considered correct according to the rules propounded by gmac.

be very, very careful.

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if anyone can find an official problem for which the official explanation condemns the type of pronoun use found in choice (e), in which the pronoun is parallel to the intended antecedent and not to the other noun(s), PLEASE post it. it would be both sad and enlightening if we could catch gmac in contravention of its own rules.

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finally, 'they desire to be thin' is somewhat awkward (as opposed to 'the desire to be thin', which is perfectly natural); usually, when 'desire' is used as a verb, it's used with a noun (or pronoun), not an infinitive noun clause. i don't think it's wrong per se, but 'aspire' would be a much better word choice.

netigen wrote:What if E read

E. Young female ballet dancers & gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits because of their desire to be as thin as possible.

Will this be considered correct from GMAT standard?

if we use other official questions, most notably the one i posted here, as a precedent, we could safely conclude that this phrasing would be acceptable to the test writers.

it would arguably be better if the modifier were moved to the front of the sentence - because of their desire to be as thin as possible, young dancers... - but this form appears to follow the gmat standard.

remember: the vast majority of the time, you'll be looking for a totally unambiguous pronoun. if you get a problem on which none of the pronouns are totally unambiguous - as is the case on problem 19 in the verbal supplement - only then should you start looking for pronouns that are grammatically parallel to one of the possible antecedents, as in the problems quoted here.

make sense?