SARS coronavirus – the virus that causes Sudden Acute Respiratory

Hi everyone, I have a couple of doubts with the above question. Doesnt every other Gmat guide/prep source say that proper noun is always better than a pronoun. In that case one's focus would shift towards answers C and D.

Second in the correct ans provided, that's E, the verb 'taking' looks odd to me as the infected people are not taking care of the victims still.
I understand other choices have more glaring errors - A,B,C doesnt have antecedent for them and in D the past perfect tense 'had' is wrong still am a bit confounded by choice E.

Thanks for your inputs

viciss : Thats the main point of GMAT.
It tests how well you can eliminate the other options!!

I doubt the OA. I can not find problem with actual sentence.
"them" is not ambiguous, as it could well refer to "the family members". Meaning also seems to be logical in this case.
"them" can not refer to personnel, because in that case "them" should have been "themselves", and even after making this change sentence becomes nonsensical.
Don't know why "victims" should be separately mentioned.
Experts please comment !!!

hi,
the meaning ofcourse does not come out clearly..
it means "it has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of them."
if you replace them with family members " it has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of the family members "
how can it infect someone who is already infected and taking care of himself..

them clearly refers to victims and requires to be soon that way..

Hi there her goes my understanding -

Context of the sentence -

SARS doesnt spread from X ---------to--------------> Y , though in china .......... ( referring to an exception ) it has happened...

It ( Sars Virus ) has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of victims.

Taking correctly modifies - the family members and health care personnel.

Further options A , B and C mentions " them " , without any clear antecedent ( it can refer to 1. the family members 2. health care personnel 3. Both the family members and health care personnel , hence rejected.)

If we assume that " Them " here is referring to the victims then the meaning gets distorded , we need to communicate effectively that people who attended the victims of SARS were actually infected (which should not have happed )

That's how far my understanding goes..

Q: SARS coronavirus – the virus that causes Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome – does not seem to transmit easily from person to person, though in China it has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of them.

A. it has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of them. – “them” has no antecedent in the sentence
B. it has infected the family members and health care personnel who had taken care of them. - “them” has no antecedent in the sentence
C. the virus has infected the family members and health care personnel who have taken care of them. - “them” has no antecedent in the sentence
D. the virus had infected the family members and health care personnel who took care of victims. – “had infected” gives a wrong timeline. the virus infected the family members and personnel after they took care of the victims
E. it has infected the family members and health care personnel taking care of victims. – “taking” looks odd, but not sure if it is wrong because of that [Correct]

Hi,
I stuck between "A" and "E"
Why "victim" is prefer?
Is it more generic to refer to any people not just specific to "family member" if them is in placed?
To me,both is possible.

Thanks

Thanks

I can recall the explanation give by Ron, manhattan expert. He says if two options seem to be correct, and one of them has pronoun while other has noun (for the same thing/person). Always prefer the one with the noun.


hope it helps..

+1 Kudos if you like the post

OFFICIAL SOLUTION

This difficult problem is an excellent example of why the decision point strategy is so important. In the original sentence, you will probably not notice the error with “them” at the end until you see the choice of “victims” in (D) and (E). The “them” in (A), (B), and (C) has no antecedent in the sentence. When you say “has infected THE family members and health personnel taking care of them” you need to have something for “them” to refer back to (it is not referring to family members or health personnel as that would be illogical – they are THE people doing the taking care of). In (D) the past perfect “had infected” is illogical as the virus did not infect the people BEFORE they took care of the people with the virus (the victims). (E) gets everything correct – it uses the proper, logical tense and uses “victims” instead of “them”. Answer is (E).

2 issues lie at the beginning and at the end of the each option.
"victims" win over "them"
"has infected" wins because of the present tense.

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