The Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure that led to its deterioration have been corrected, according to the firm of consulting engineers.

A) The Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure that led to its deterioration.
B) The Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure, leading to its deterioration.
C) leading to its deterioration, the Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure.
D) The defects that the Statue of Liberty had in its supporting structure that led to its deterioration.
E) The defects in the supporting structure of the Statue of Liberty which led to its deterioration.



How is OA correct?
My doubt about OA : 1. Doesn't "which" modify only preceding words in the GMAT world?
2. When "which" is used, should't there be a comma before "which"?

Also, I have several other questions.
1. What's wrong with b and c? I think that the Statue of Liberty's defect IS LEADING its deterioration.
Is "its" before deterioration a problem? Does it have a ambiguity issue?

2. If "which" or "that" doesn't modify only preceding words like "which" in the OA, can't a be the OA?
What's wrong with a?

This is pretty weird

Does anyone have any explanation?

Remember one rule: Nouns in the possessive case (before 's) and after preposition are poor antecedents. So we are very clear why OA is E:
A) The Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure that led to its deterioration.
"Its" here refers to defects , not the Statue of Liberty . Defects can not be deteriorated.
B) The Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure, leading to its deterioration.
The same mistake to A
C) leading to its deterioration, the Statue of Liberty's defects in its supporting structure.
The same mistake to A
D) The defects that the Statue of Liberty had in its supporting structure that led to its deterioration.
Second "that" modifies "supporting structure " or " defects" ? Ambiguous.
E) The defects in the supporting structure of the Statue of Liberty which led to its deterioration.

OA: "which" modifies "defects" , not "Statue of Liberty" because "Statue of Liberty" is after the preposition "of".
"which" in this case is essential to clear the meaning , therefore we do not put commas there.

Hope it helps
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Wrong with D:
"structure that led to its deterioration"

Structure dint lead to the deterioration but the defects did!
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In the original statement, "that led to its deterioration" is a noun-modifier. And a noun-modifier must touch the noun that it modifies. Secondly, the reference of "its" is incorrect because it is refering to supporting structure, but we know that the intention of the sentence is to refer to Statue of Liberty, which is not present in the sentence, rather, its possessive form is present. So an alternate that removes these errors will be correct. Either the source of this question is a problem, or there is an error in retyping the question by the original poster, because none of the options look correct to me. Here's why

A. As explained above
B. "its" is ambiguous. Secondly, ", leading" (-ing verb with a comma) modifies the verb or the whole clause before it. But in this case, there is no action happening in the first part of the sentence.
C. "its" is ambiguous again. Secondly, the modifier "leading to its deterioration" should follow the noun that is being deteriorated or is referred to by "its". In this case, it is the defects.
D. The presence of "that" after "supporting structure" implies that the supporting structure led to the statue's deterioration. The ambiguity with "its" however has been resolved.
E. Incorrect usage and wrong placement of non-essential modifier.
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