While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they

And here's a video explanation. Enjoy!

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Idioms

• “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.
• A pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly refers to the plural noun “values” with the plural pronoun “they”. Moreover, Option A correctly uses the pronoun “they” to refer to only one noun - “values” - in this sentence. Further, Option A avoids the idiom error seen in Options B and D, as it does not use “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the pronoun “they” and its possessive form “their” to refer to both “depressed property values” and “homeowners”; please remember, a pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence. Further, Option B incorrectly uses “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners; please remember, “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the pronoun “they” and its possessive form “their” to refer to both “depressed property values” and “homeowners”; please remember, a pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence.

D: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun “it” to refer to the plural noun “values”. Further, Option D incorrectly uses “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners; please remember, “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun “it” to refer to the plural noun “values”.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Because" vs "In That" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~x minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

'E' & 'D' are out, 'it' can't refer to plural 'depressed property values'.

'C' is out since there is no clear antecedent for 'their'.

in 'B', 'in that their' appears awkward & also same problem as in 'C' for 'their'.


'A' it should be. (also, 'whose' clearly refers to homeowners)

Thank you for the quick response.

However, a clarification between A and B is the usage of word "can" vs "are" - any thoughts related to this or this doesn't matter really?

Would "they" confuse as some large investors as to depressed property values?

Can someone explain to that?

There is certainly a meaning difference between "can" and "are." Consider the difference between "Some birds can talk" (i.e. it is possible) and "some birds are talking" (i.e. right now). I think that difference is of minimal importance in this GMAT question because "potentially" in all choices conveys the "it is possible" meaning.


Pronouns don't follow a strict proximity rule (i.e. the antecedent isn't automatically the closest noun, or even the closest preceding noun).

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners...

Here, "values" and "they" are used the same way: as subjects of the verbs "can hurt" and "are...devastating." Note that these verbs are parallel, both in tense (present) and meaning.

In contrast, "large investors" are the object of the verb, more similar to "(for) homeowners" than to "they." So, the GMAT would not consider this pronoun confusing.

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear.

A. they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
B. they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
C. for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
D. for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
E. it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose


Again SV agreement is tested here, also pronouns. Also look out for redundancy in answer choices.

in A we need to make sure that the pronoun ''they'' is used correctly as we have tow plurals in the sentence before pronoun reference ''property values'' and ''large investors''

they cannot refer to large investors coz it cannot modify the noun just preceeding it. TOO CLOSE to be be an antecedent we say it.
While in C ''they'' can refer either to large investors or to property values because now it's seperated from large investors and not TOO CLOSE.

So C is OUT.
B has redundancy and also SV.. what does ''their'' reffering to?? OUT
D & E have SV agreement.. use of IT.


Best Regards,
Mansoor

PS: Please consider kudos if you found the post useful

You are correct that the OA is A. This question is a really good example of shifting pronoun antecedents. Pronoun ambiguity isn't a big issue with the GMAT anymore, but shifting a pronoun's antecedent is incorrect...

KW

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity —in many cases representing a life's savings—can plunge or even disappear.


(A) they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
(B) they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
(C) for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
(D) for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
(E) it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose

They can refer to "depressed property values" or "investors". Why is A not wrong then?

Also hurt and devastate seem to parallel and not hurt and devastating...i think E should be correct ...Experts please advice

It (a singular pronoun) cannot refer to depressed property values (a plural noun), the intended referent of it.

Hence, it is, what can be called as orphan pronoun. Such pronouns are always incorrect.

Please note the difference between an orphan pronoun (pronoun with no antecedents) and ambiguous pronoun (pronoun with multiple antecedents).

Orphan pronoun is always incorrect, while ambiguous pronoun is acceptable.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses pronoun usage, their application and examples in significant detail. If you can PM you email, I can send you the corresponding section.

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear

Ans opt a)

Doubt: How can the verb tense be present continuos

Analysis:
"Are potentially devastating" is incorrect as the devastation to homeowners is not an ongoing action .The whole sentence talks about a future possiblity using the word can.
and this also maintains verb tense parallelism.

I feel the corrected part of the sentence should be " they can devastate homeowners"

Is my understanding right?

It's not present continuous--"devastating" in this case is an adjective. The depressed property values have the potential to be devastating for homeowners. One way to tell that we aren't dealing with a verb is the use of "for." You don't devastate for someone. Does that make sense?

Wait, for (A), why isn't the first underlined word, "they" ambiguous as to what it refers to? Couldn't it refer to depressed property values or some large investors? I'm reading it and technically, couldn't I interpret the sentence as meaning, "some large investors are potentially devastating for homeowners"? Colloquially, I would know what is intended, but GMAT-wise, isn't the grammar supposed to be very technical?

We see that "they" refers to "depressed property values" instead of the immediately preceding noun, "large investors"; whereas, "whose" refers to the immediate noun, "homeowners". So, it seems to not follow structurally. They all seem wrong to me, but I'm sure I'm missing something here...

The GMAT has shifted over the years. There is a big push towards meaning based questions. Pronoun ambiguity has moved into this meaning space. Having technical ambiguity isn't necessarily incorrect from a GMAT standpoint as long as the meaning can be reasonably understood.

This problem does have technical ambiguity but the meaning is understandable. The area that is incorrect from a GMAT standpoint is the shifting of antecedents between pronouns. That is not tolerated on the GMAT.

Some ambiguity is tested on the GMAT. You can tell when it is tested because there is an option between a pronoun or restating the noun. In those cases you should choose the noun.

KW

Just because a pronoun is sitting pretty next to a noun, we shouldn’t conclude that the pronoun per se might also refer to the proximity noun. But, as matter of rule, the subject of the sentence has the first right of reference to the pronoun rather than the near noun. If the subject of the clause is unable to be referred by the pronoun, then we have to look forward to other choices.

Second thing about pronouns is that pronouns such as ‘they and their’ should refer to the same noun in a clause.

Viewed in that light:

In A, ‘they’ does refer to the values, the subject of the main clause. It cannot refer to the large investors because you don’t expect the large investors to potentially harm the home owners. In addition the possessive pronoun ‘‘whose’ correctly modifies the homeowners. A also avoids the redundancy of ‘can potentially’ found in some other choice.

Even before going into the logic of pronoun reference, we can dispense with B and E for using the redundant phrase ‘can potentially’. Nevertheless, for the sake of understanding, we can see that B is also incorrect, because while the pronoun ‘they’ refers to the values, 'their' refers to homeowners. This is unacceptable

C also has the same problem as B, since 'their' cannot logically refer to the values since values have no equity, only homeowners hold equity.

D: D flaunts a pronoun ‘it’ to refer to the plural values.

E: same problem as in D.

Doesnt depressed property values represent a number here ? how can we consider in this case as plural?