Pronoun reference

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Vemuri: Legendary Member; Posts: 682; Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:40 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 32 times

by Vemuri » Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:56 pm

While high oil prices may be problematic for some trucking companies, they may be disastrous for airlines, whose operations – already losing money – could be plunged into bankruptcy.

A. they may be disastrous for airlines, whose
B. they may potentially cause disaster for airlines in that their
C. for airlines they may be disastrous, because their
D. for airlines, it may be disastrous in that their
E. it may potentially cause disaster for airlines, whose

OA after some discussion.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:56 pm

scoobydooby: Legendary Member; Posts: 1035; Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:56 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 104 times

by scoobydooby » Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:13 am

would go for A

A. correct IMO, they unambiguously refers to prices.

B. use of "may" and "potentially" together is awkward as both may and potentially imply "chance/possibility". (potentially disastrous would have been better IMO)

C. the "thier" is ambiguos, could refer to the airlines or prices.

D. SV agreement error. uses "it" for prices-plural

E. SV agreement error. uses "it" for prices-plural. also uses "may potentially cause"

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nervesofsteel: Legendary Member; Posts: 594; Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:51 pm; Thanked: 12 times

by nervesofsteel » Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:38 am

C for me..

I believe They in A is ambiguous, moreover Whose can refer to particular case of airlines.. not all..

Thus i will go for C

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karmayogi: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 467; Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2008 10:19 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 27 times

by karmayogi » Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:46 am

@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

@nervesofsteel
Why "they" and "their" in C are unambiguously?

@Vemuri
What's the source?

To me all are wrong.

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divine within.
--By Swami Vivekananda

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scoobydooby: Legendary Member; Posts: 1035; Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:56 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 104 times

by scoobydooby » Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:01 am

karmayogi wrote:@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

karmayogi wrote:@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

quote]

hi karmayogi,
the structure is : while x (high oil prices) may be problematic for y, x may be disastrous for z. (two different effects of x at the same time).
so the "they" refers to x (high oil prices)

just a thought, may be wrong will wait for the OA and the OE

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karmayogi: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 467; Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2008 10:19 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 27 times

by karmayogi » Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:14 am

scoobydooby wrote:
karmayogi wrote:@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

karmayogi wrote:@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

quote]

hi karmayogi,
the structure is : while x (high oil prices) may be problematic for y, x may be disastrous for z. (two different effects of x at the same time).
so the "they" refers to x (high oil prices)

just a thought, may be wrong will wait for the OA and the OE
I am never sure about such questions. There is another thread on similar issue: https://www.beatthegmat.com/savings-bank ... tml#142411.

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divine within.
--By Swami Vivekananda

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Vemuri: Legendary Member; Posts: 682; Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:40 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 32 times

by Vemuri » Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:55 am

karmayogi wrote:@scoobydooby
why "they" in A is unambiguously? I think, "They" can refer to both prices and companies.

@nervesofsteel
Why "they" and "their" in C are unambiguously?

@Vemuri
What's the source?

To me all are wrong.

I was thinking if I was the only guy getting confused with the pronoun reference. I am glad karmayogi is also on the same lines. Well, the OA is A & the source of the question is Kaplan.

Scoobydooby gave a reasonable explanation by using the example "while x (high oil prices) may be problematic for y, x may be disastrous for z. (two different effects of x at the same time). so the "they" refers to x (high oil prices)"

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lgon: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 5; Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:44 pm; Location: Chennai

by lgon » Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:02 am

A. or=red]they[/color] may be disastrous for airlines, whose
B. [color=red]they[/color] may potentially cause disaster for airlines in that their
C. for airlines [color=red]they[/color] may be disastrous, because their
D. for airlines, it may be disastrous in that [color=red]their [/color]
E. it may potentially cause disaster for airlines, whose

IMHO.. it is E because of the pronoun reference problem.

battle does not decide the outcome of war!

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Kunal_gmat: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 45; Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:59 am; Thanked: 2 times

by Kunal_gmat » Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:05 pm

As per MGMAT SC guide, a noun in a clause can be referenced as a pronoun in another cluase, if both are in the same place. "High oil prices" and "they" are in the same place in both the clauses. Hence I picked (A).

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cramya: Legendary Member; Posts: 2467; Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:14 pmFollowed by: 11 members; Thanked: 331 times

by cramya » Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:33 pm

"High oil prices" and "they" are in the same place in both the clauses

Good point; in this case both are subjects and "they" being a subject pronoun refers to HIGH oil prices which is the subject

Regards,
CR

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nervesofsteel: Legendary Member; Posts: 594; Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:51 pm; Thanked: 12 times

by nervesofsteel » Sun Apr 19, 2009 12:24 am

Thanks ...

Learned a new concept...

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figs: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 70; Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:00 am; Thanked: 2 times

by figs » Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:29 am

OA??

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Vemuri: Legendary Member; Posts: 682; Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:40 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 32 times

by Vemuri » Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:29 pm

figs wrote:OA??

OA is A

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iamcste: Legendary Member; Posts: 940; Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:22 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 55 times

by iamcste » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:40 am

karmayogi wrote:
To me all are wrong.

I think we need to start option F for karmayogi.

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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 Apr 21, 2009 11:13 am

Received a PM asking me to reply.

Agree with whoever above wanted the source. Let's get in the habit of listing the sources when posting questions. We need to know whether we're dealing with a reputable source, and therefore we need to make sure to learn the material, or whether the question itself might be suspect, in which case we can feel more comfortable disregarding it.

The discussion above about the parts of speech is correct - if the logical antecedent also is the same part of speech as the pronoun, then you have both logical and structural reasons to match the two, and that is typically sufficient on the real test.

scoobydooby offers a nice reason for the parallelism between the logical antecedent: "while x (high oil prices) may be problematic for y, x may be disastrous for z."

This shows the structural comparability between "high oil prices" and "they." These two also match logically, of course, and structure + logic = sufficient to say that there's no ambiguity.

Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

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