For many travelers, charter vacations often turn out to cost considera

A , B and C are wrong for using they where usage of it( cost) was required
confused between D and E
usage of would looks right will go with E

Hello,

Can you please explain to me how to quickly narrow down answer choices in this problem to arrive at the correct answer. Does "it" refer to "cost" and "they" refer to "charter vacations" ? I'm confused as to whether charter vacation in this sentence is supposed to be singular or plural.
Thanks!


17. For many travlers, charter vacations oftern turn out to cost considerably more than they originally seemed.


a. they originally seemed

b. they originally seem to

c. they seemingly would cost originally

d. it seemed originally

e. it originally seemed they would

Tonebeeze -

Whenever you see a pronoun split (for example: some answers have "it", others have "they), you need to ask yourself a few questions to quickly narrow down the answers:

1. Does the pronoun have an antecedent in the sentence? To check, try to replace the pronoun with another word in the sentence that you think might be the antecedent. For example:

"Bill is six feet tall, so he is a great basketball player." --> Here, you could replace "he" with "Bill" and the sentence would make sense. Bill is the antecedent of "he."

"Bill's hands are huge, so he is a great basketball player." --> Here, you can NOT replace "he" with "Bill" because the subject of the sentence is not "Bill." Instead, the subject is "Bill's hands." You cannot logically say "Bill's hands is a great basketball player," so this would be a pronoun error.

2. Is the antecedent clear and unambiguous? Essentially, you want to know whether there is more than one subject that could replace the pronoun. If there is more than one, you have a pronoun problem:

"Bill and Ted were walking to the mall, but then he got a call from his father and had to go home." --> We don't know whether "he" is referring to Bill or Ted, so this is no good.

The last note to make here is that "it" always refers to singular inanimate objects (chairs, tables, houses, corporations) and "they" always refers to plural objects, animate or inanimate (monkeys, books, etc.)

I know this is a little more general than the question you asked, but since a link to the answer was already posted I thought I'd sum up here. Good luck!

E for me too. A has parallelism error. B has a tense error; seemed would be better.

Can anyone explain what "it" refers to in E?

Nothing. it is not used as a classical pronoun, but just as a placeholder.

For example:

Inflation has made it difficult to survive.

Again, it is used as a placeholder. It's best to understand the context of the sentence to determines whether it is used as a pronoun, or as a placeholder.

Hi sayantanc2k,

Earlier we had a chat https://gmatclub.com/forum/according-to-a-1996-survey-by-the-national-association-of-85428-80.html about omissions in GMAT.

Here is the problem where omission is not preferred. Could you please help me understand how this problem is different from the previous one?

Thanks!!

This is not a good question.
There are two plural nouns in the sentence. When looking for pronoun antecedents, we need to consider two things: structure and logic. Logically, "they" refers to "charter vacations." What about structurally? "charter vacations" is the subject of the first verb and it is also the first half of a comparison. "they" is the subject of the second verb and it is also the second half of the previously mentioned comparison. So, we've got a structural match as well - it's okay to say that "they" matches with "charter vacations" and not with "travelers."

Okay, what about D and E? The "they" moves but is still matched with a verb in the sentence, so that also qualifies. The pronoun "it" does not always have to have an antecedent. Think about: "it's raining outside." What's raining outside? The sky? Mother Nature? Nothing, really. So "it" can be used sometimes to refer to an abstract idea, for which there isn't an actual referent in the sentence.

So now how do we decide? Let's start with the first 3, since they're similar. "originally" does dictate a change to past tense, so B and C are out.

A reads: CVs turn out to cost more than they originally seemed to cost. Hmm. Let's put ourselves back in time, two weeks ago, before the charter vacation began. Someone's trying to sell it to us. Do we actually pay it all at the beginning ("originally")? No. If we paid it all at the beginning, then there wouldn't be a different cost during or at the end. Okay, so what we're told right now is what it "will" cost or what it "should" cost - in the future, as we're taking the vacation. There isn't an actual total cost at this point in time but an expected total cost. Once we get to the future point where the actual cost comes into play, that's when we suddenly discover - hey, this is costing a lot more than you told me it would (cost)!

(Is anybody else getting annoyed with our hypothetical travel agent here? )

So the thing that "originally seemed" to be the case is that it would cost a certain amount of money, not that it did cost a certain amount of money. That gets rid of both A and D, leaving us with E.

GMATNinja egmat can you please confirm the pronouns used in this question? IMO they can refer back to charter vacations as well and in the right answer, if I try to replace 'it' with 'cost' and 'they' with charter vacations then it doesn't make sense anymore

Hi Dipankar

In this sentence (in the correct option), "it" does not play the role of a typical pronoun referring to an earlier noun in the sentence, but merely that of a placeholder.

(E) For many travelers, charter vacations often turn out to cost considerably more than it originally seemed they would.

But first, you are correct in that "they" can refer back to more than one earlier noun. However, on the GMAT, it is always a bad idea to eliminate an option on the basis of an ambiguous antecedent for a pronoun unless you have another option without an ambiguous antecedent and no other errors. In this, options (A), (B), (C) and (E) all have "they" which could have an antecedent pronoun, whereas (D) is clearly incomplete without the subject phrase "they would" at the end. So w ehave to live with an ambiguous antecedent for a pronoun.

Coming back to "it", it merely plays the role of a placeholder. For eg, consider the sentence: It is raining.

Here, too, "it" does not refer to any noun. Similarly in this sentence as well. "It" just holds the place for the subsequent subject phrase "they would".

Hope this clarifies.

GMATNinja, Bunuel , GMATGuruNY , can you please explain ?