Major trouble with pronouns

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Benni: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 22; Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:06 am; Thanked: 1 times

by Benni » Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:09 am

Hi Guys,

I am non-native speaker and have serious trouble to figure out whether a pronoun is ambigious or not. For example, let us consider the following sentence for a moment:

Gasoline has become so expensive that IT now consumes as much as 16% of personal income in some rural areas. (Source: Manhattan SC).

The Pronoun "IT" refers to Gasoline. But why couldn' t "IT" refer to personal income. Obvisouly, from an logical perspective it does not make sense to say "personal income (IT) consumes as much as 16% of personal income...". But I would like to focus on the grammar perspective solely.

Can anyone help, please.
Best regards,
Benni

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:09 am

Kasia@EconomistGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 646; Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 7:08 amFollowed by: 143 members; Thanked: 322 times

by Kasia@EconomistGMAT » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:54 am

A pronoun can be ambiguous, when two or more nouns precede it and each of them could possibly serve as a referent for the pronoun.
e.g. Using chest and dental x-rays, anthropological researchers have discovered a new method that can determine the age of a given individual, and though it is still being developed, it is already proving to be more effective than current methods.

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avik.ch: Legendary Member; Posts: 641; Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2011 1:15 amFollowed by: 32 members; Thanked: 149 times; GMAT Score:760

by avik.ch » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:01 am

There is no rule for defining pronoun usage - its solely decided by context.

for more on this refer this OG problem : https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/whi ... t8523.html

Hope this helps !!

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Benni: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 22; Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:06 am; Thanked: 1 times

by Benni » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:51 am

Thanks do both of you. Absolutely appreciate your help and got the point now. The Manhattangmat-Link is especially helpful.

Cheers.

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