Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurant

My doubt is about the reference of the first 'its' in the sentence. Doesnt it seem like the first 'its' after 'and' could refer to country, making the meaning incorrect!
Also i am baffled with this concept of pronoun usage.

For example: Since Walmart opened a new store Walex, its sales have been declining.
Here what does 'its' refer to?

example 2: Walmart has opened two new restaurants in a mall and its sales have declined drastically.
Here what does 'its' refer to?

While the Official Guide often offers "awkwardness" as a justification for eliminating incorrect options, the reality is that "awkward" is a completely subjective term that doesn't actually mean anything. Frankly, tons of CORRECT answers on the GMAT look pretty freaking awkward to me.

In other words: "awkward" is not a good reason to eliminate anything on the GMAT. There are always better reasons than that -- regardless of what the lazy OG explanation-writers might say.


The terms in blue are all the subjects of their respective clauses. Whenever a pronoun is the subject of a clause - or a possessive modifier, as is the case here for the two "its" - the most logical place to look for an antecedent is the subject of the first clause, or "the restaurant company." This makes perfect sense. The company's overall sales have increased even though the company's sales at older restaurants have gone down.

And for what it's worth, using two pronouns to refer to the same antecedent is pretty common, and it's only a problem if the referent is illogical. Here, it isn't.


As others have noted, there's an illogical shift in verb tense here. "Has added" and "have declined" are both present perfect, meaning the actions began in the past and continue into the present. However, "increased" is simple past.

While there's no rule forbidding tense shifts within a sentence, there should be some logical reason for the shift. Here, the shift is illogical, since the sentence is basically meaningless unless we're comparing sales in the same period. Contrast this with (A), which keeps all the actions in present perfect.

So (B) is out.


First, we have the same verb tense problem as (B). We also have a problematic passive voice construction. While passive voice isn't inherently wrong, the clause "many new restaurants have recently been opened" leaves us wondering who or what was opening these restaurants. Worse still, the singular "its," seems to be referring back to the subject of the previous clause, the plural "restaurants," creating an agreement error. I suppose you could argue that "its" refers to "restaurant company's," but at best this construction is confusing.

So we have all sorts of reasons to ditch (C).


There's a clear modifier problem here - the opening phrase seems to be describing the company's sales, leading to the illogical interpretation that the sales are adding restaurants. So (D) is gone, too.


(E) has exactly the same modifier problem as (D). So we're left with (A).

The big takeaway: be wary of eliminating an answer choice because of "awkwardness" or pronoun ambiguity (more on pronoun ambiguity in this video). Instead, focus on finding four DEFINITE meaning or grammar problems in the other answer choices.

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja
This is very helpful!
I was thrown off by choice A because I identified the root phrase as what is in blue:
"Although the restaurant company"

I am still confused on the "its" following the "and". To confirm, what are the X and Y elements?

How should I think about this?

Thank you in advance.

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically...

I mean how the sales can increase by itself?

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.
In this sentence, I think there is a run-on error, as and -after country- is without the comma. In the first part of the sentence, we already have one clause (Main noun: Rest. Co. and the main verb: has essentially added), but we have one more phrase (noun: its sales and verb: have increased)
Please let me know if I am thinking in the right direction.

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.

(A) the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its

Based on the structure of (A) -- we know that
-- Company's new stores ARE NOT THE CAUSE for why Company's sales have increased (given the two clauses are seperated by "and")

I must say, this question is quite an eye opener to me. Previously I used to think that "sales" is usually used as singular only.

Can someone please explain that in option choice A , how "sales have increased dramatically " is correct .
I thought that " sales " is uncountable noun , so it should take singular verb "has " .
Please correct me , where i am going wrong.

Can someone please explain that in option choice A , how "sales have increased dramatically " is correct .
I thought that " sales " is uncountable noun , so it should take singular verb "has " .
Please correct me , where i am going wrong.

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.

(A) the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its

(B) the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales increased dramatically, its

(C) many new restaurants have recently been opened across the country and its sales increased dramatically, the restaurant company’s

(D) having recently added many new restaurants across the country and with its sales increasing dramatically, the restaurant company’s

(E) recently adding many new restaurants across the country and having its sales increase dramatically, the restaurant company’s

Since I am also attempting EA, here is my analysis. AjiteshArun KarishmaB MartyMurray your feedback is highly appreciated.
Between A and B, what caught my attention is the difference in verb usage, present perfect "have increased" in A and simple past "increased". I eliminated B because:
A - "Have increased" is correct because the increase of sales is still continuing as opposed to B - "increased" that indicates sales stopped increasing. I don't think this is what the original statement means, given that the non undelined portion uses present perfect tense "has added" as well (probably still adding more...).­