{"id":7550,"date":"2011-07-11T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=7550"},"modified":"2011-06-15T19:19:04","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T03:19:04","slug":"kaplan-gmat-sample-problem-sentence-correction-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/kaplan-gmat-sample-problem-sentence-correction-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaplan GMAT Sample Problem: Sentence Correction Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/gmat\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/kaplan_smaller.png\" alt=\"Kaplan Logo\" \/><\/a> Today we will be looking at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/GMAT\/About-the-GMAT\/verbal-section.html?cmp=prt:btg_05082011\">sentence correction<\/a> problem that features a pronoun error.  Pronoun errors are fairly common on the GMAT, so you want to be ready for them.  Remember, when you see a pronoun, it must match its antecedent (the word it is replacing) in number and it must be unambiguous \u2013 that is, you must know without any doubt what the pronoun\u2019s antecedent is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong><br \/>\nDuring World War II, \u201ccode talkers\u201d were Native American soldiers that were specifically recruited to develop codes based in the Navajo language; these codes made any intercepted communications virtually indecipherable.<br \/>\n(A)\tthat were specifically recruited to develop codes based in the Navajo language<br \/>\n(B)\twho were specifically recruited to develop codes based in the Navajo language<br \/>\n(C)\tthat used the Navajo language to develop the codes they were specifically recruited for<br \/>\n(D)\tthat, when specifically recruited, developed codes based on the Navajo language<br \/>\n(E)\twho were specifically recruited to develop codes based on the Navajo language<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen analyzing the sentence, notice the relative pronoun \u201cthat\u201d<br \/>\nat the beginning of the underlined portion.  \u201cThat\u201d is used to refer to the Native American soldiers.  However, because Native American soldiers are people, rather than objects, the pronoun \u201cthat\u201d is incorrect.  Instead, the sentence should use the pronoun \u201cwho.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you scan the answer choices, you will see find that options (A), (C) and (D) all use maintain the use of \u201cthat,\u201d which we know is incorrect.  Therefore, we can eliminate choices (A), (C) and (D).<\/p>\n<p>This leaves (B) and (E) as possible answers.  The only difference between these two choices is the preposition used after \u201cbased.\u201d  Thus, in order to solve this problem, we need to know the correct idiom.  As idioms are based on common usage rather than grammatical rules, you simply need to memorize any idioms you do not know.  In this case, the preposition \u201con\u201d should be used after the verb \u201cto base.\u201d  Therefore, we can eliminate choice (B), as it incorrectly uses the preposition \u201cin.\u201d   We are left with option <strong>(E)<\/strong> as the only remaining answer, which is correct.<\/p>\n<p>~Bret Ruber<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/gmat\">https:\/\/www.kaptest.com\/gmat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we will be looking at a sentence correction problem that features a pronoun error. Pronoun errors are fairly common on the GMAT, so you want to be ready for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,558,243,719,735],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-kaplan-blog","category-blog","category-sentence-correction-gmat","category-verbal-gmat-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7552,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550\/revisions\/7552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}