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(A) they had in their previous campaigns
The key is in the non-underlined portion of the sentence:
“Napoleon’s army” is singular, and that means that the plural pronouns “they” and “their” have no logical referents. That’s not cool. (A) is out.
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(B) their previous campaigns had had
Well, (B) has exactly the same problem as (A): “their” is a plural pronoun that logically needs to refer to “Napoleon’s army”, but “army” is singular. That’s still not cool.
But in case you’re wondering: “had had” can actually be OK. It’s just the past perfect tense version of “had.” Consider the following:
- The army had sufficient food supplies. --> No problem. This is just simple past tense, right?
- The army had had sufficient supplies until some guy named Charlie at them all. –-> “had had” is past perfect tense, and like any action in past perfect tense, it has to precede some other action LATER in the past. And we’re all good here: the army had sufficient food supplies first, and then later on, some guy named Charlie ate them all.
So don’t get distracted by “had had”: it’s just a nice, normal action in past perfect tense. And it’s fine here: the previous campaigns occurred before the invasion of Russia, so it’s fine to use past perfect to describe those earlier campaigns.
But the pronoun thing is still a big problem. (B) is out.
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(C) they had for any previous campaign
It’s nice that the different answer choices rearrange stuff, but (C) still has the same problem as (A) and (B): “they” logically needs to refer to “Napoleon’s army”, but “army” is singular.
So (C) is gone, too.
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(D) in their previous campaigns
And this is getting boring: “their” still can’t refer to “Napoleon’s army.”
(D) is out, and I hope we like (E).
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(E) for any previous campaign
By default, this is our winner, because it’s the only option that doesn’t contain an egregious pronoun error.
But my bet is that some of you don’t really love the comparison. Maybe you’d prefer this version?
“…Napoleon’s army entered Russia with far more supplies than it had for its previous campaigns…”
That version would be crystal-clear, but the only thing that’s different in (E) is that the phrase “it had” is missing from (E). I don’t think it’s completely crazy to give the GMAT the benefit of the doubt here: “it had” really isn’t necessary for us to understand the meaning of the sentence. Of course Napoleon’s army was the thing that “had” the supplies; there’s no real need to include the phrase “it had.”
So the comparison is acceptable in (E). And more importantly, the absence of pronoun errors is wonderful. So (E) is our winner.
But "Army" is also used as "plural" in grammar. So, why don't we consider "Army" as "Plural" in this SC? I appreciate your help sir.