Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if

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What if i think in the below way,,
Who is heavily committed to a course of action? Then, name of person should come immediately after the comma.

Even though being acts as gerund in this example, how can one identify it as gerund? (According to me, answer to the what question is gerund; e.g. Smoking is injurious to the health. -- What is injurious to the health ? Answer to the question is -ing form, so it's gerund.)

That concept applies to the use of being as a (certain type of) modifier. In this case, it is not a modifier (it is the subject of the sentence). This means that we are not concerned about a who for the being. Instead, this being is used to communicate ~state. For example:

1. Being prepared is important.
2. Being too critical of the government may not be a good idea.

We can see that there is no "who" needed in either sentence.

Thanks for prompt response.

But how can one easily identify that -ing form (at the very beginning of the sentence) works as a gerund or modifier??

We could identify the main verb and then take a call on what its subject is. Some patterns we could watch out for:

1. Being, clause ← This being could be the type of modifier (participle) at the very beginning of the sentence that needs the logical noun after the comma.

2. Being verb ← But if we don't have a comma, the being could be the subject of the sentence.

3. Being, modifier, verb ← When we have a modifier in between two commas, those commas don't exist as far as the being and the verb are concerned (Being, modifier, verb), so (3) is just a variation of (2).

Hi GMATNinja, I would like to challenge your explanation of why (D) is wrong. It turns out that subject / object pronouns (them, they, it, etc.) can refer back to possessive pronouns and there are quite a few OG questions that illustrate the situation. Please have a look at the post by generis:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/recent-studi ... l#p2116833

Subjectively, (D) is wrong because of a similar reason that makes (B) wrong.
"Executives’ being heavily committed to [blah-blah], makes them ..." - this piece just does not make any logical sense.

What are your thoughts?

A. Who will miss those signs? Not clear. The two "it"s refer to two different things. 1st = course of action. 2nd = placeholder.

B. this sentence reads - "an executive ... makes ... missing signs of trouble likely" - clearly illogical. "ones" is incorrect. We need "them". The pronoun "one" can only refer to a subset of the noun to which it refers, not the entire thing.

C. "especially if it " is too far away from "course of action" and thus is inferior to the placement in option E.

D. The pronoun 'them' has no antecedent. It cannot refer to the possessive noun executives'. "miss signs" and "misinterpreting them" are not parallel.

E. is the best option!

Hope this helps!

Sorry for my slowness on this, S!

Yeah, our understanding of using non-possessive pronouns to refer to possessive antecedents has evolved. There used to be a consensus that because the construction could be confusing and we'd never seen it happen in a correct answer on the GMAT, it simply wasn't allowed.

And then...the construction showed up in a few official correct answers. So, you're right that we can't say it's definitively wrong to use a non-possessive pronoun to refer to a non-possessive noun. But it is worth bearing in mind that if doing so creates an unclear or confusing sentence, you still might prefer an alternative! (And I vaguely remember writing a mea culpa about this on another thread or two, but I'm not sure where, exactly.)

Fortunately, in (D) we have our pick of juicy problems. Consider the main clause:

"Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear."

First, "them" is used twice and seems to refer to different nouns - "executives" the first time, and "signs" the second. This is, at best, confusing. Better yet, the parallel marker "or" is followed by "misinterpreting," but there's nothing for "misinterpreting" to be parallel to!

Contrast this with what we see in (E): in which both "them" and "they" refer to "signs," and we get the correct parallel construction, "miss...or misinterpret." Clearly, (E) is the better option.

Takeaway: this is a good reminder that all of us (myself included) should get out of the habit of trying to memorize and apply esoteric rules about which constructions are acceptable, and focus instead on using either truly universal grammar rules or logic/meaning to determine which option is best.

I hope that helps!

Hello,
I am still not sure why C is incorrect. I understand E is also correct. I have been advised to take the meaning and logical based approach for SC. In this sentence, in option C, "it" can logically only refer back to the action and "it" can not logically refer to the "trouble".
"especially if the trouble has worked well in the past" does not logically make sense. Can someone help.
Thanks

Hi 9Karan3,

There is no "meaning approach" to SC as such. Or, more accurately, that term is not meant to be taken as an absolute. Sure, SC tests meaning, but that's not the only thing it tests. Take the following sentence for example:

It seemed as if the ball reached the boundary even before it left Bumrah's hand.

There's a lot that goes into understanding even a simple sentence like that, and much of that processing work does not rely on absolute rules. You or I may feel that the it can logically refer back only to the ball, but the it is ambiguous. Does that mean that the sentence is unacceptable? No, but it does mean that it contains a possible error, and that we should choose a better option if a better option is available. In the case of this question, a better option is available, so that is what we must choose as the answer.

I support your decision to look for meaning issues, but we cannot say that pronoun ambiguity does not exist just because we want to lead with meaning.

There are two reasons why "it" is wrong in C

1. Slight ambiguity. "It" could refer to either "course" or "trouble", and definitely it makes more sense with "course", but pronoun reference should not only take the meaning into consideration. Pronoun placement is just as important. That final "it" is so far away from "course" , and so close to "trouble" that it is not clear. Of course this does not make the sentence totally incorrect, but is a red flag.

2. MORE IMPORTANT. "It" should not be used in this sentence. Notice that the correct answer choice changes the pronoun to "one". That is because we need a COPY. We are not referring to that specific course of action, but to an undetermined course of action that has worked well in the past. Just remember that "IT" is a personal pronoun, that refers to specific/determined nouns.




Best,


Rod

A. Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

What is the subject of the verb "makes" ? Does touch rule apply here? I eliminated this question because the "past" or the "course of action" can't really "make" .

Thanks

Heavy commitment is the subject here.

Thanks, touch rule doesn't apply to the SV agreement?

At best, touch rule would apply to modifiers.

Dear GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep IanStewart VeritasPrepHailey AjiteshArun DmitryFarber GMATNinja GMATRockstar,

Can IT in choice A. act as a placeholder for infinitive phrase?

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes IT likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

IMHO, it is fine to use IT this way (although I've seen many experts call this usage wrong)
According to MGMAT:

RonPurewal also said that this usage is correct

I don't think about SC in terms of grammar jargon like 'infinitive phrases', but it seems to me we (correctly) use "it" that way all the time. "I like to read because it relaxes me" is, as far as I can tell, an even simpler example than the ones you give in your post, where "it" is used to stand for an infinitive. The other examples you give are also perfectly correct.

That still doesn't make answer A right, because as A is written, it is incomprehensible. One of its biggest issues is that it does not make clear, no matter how you interpret the various "its" in the sentence, who will miss the signs of trouble. Any rewrite of answer A that does make clear who will miss the signs of trouble is instantly a better answer choice.

"It" can be used as you described, as it is in the following example.

The telescope makes it easy to see details of faraway objects.

We can confirm that "it" is used logically by substituting the infinitive for "it."

The telescope makes to see details of faraway objects easy.

However, "it" does not work logically in that way in this instance, as we can see by substituting the infinitive for "it."

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action makes to miss signs of incipient trouble likely.

Since that version is not logical, we can't really say that "it" is used logically.

The following would work.

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action makes it likely that that executive will miss signs of incipient trouble.

We can confirm by substituting the noun clause for "it."

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action makes that that executive will miss signs of incipient trouble likely.