According to the Economic Development Corporation of Los Angeles Count

Hello Team,

I would like to know the role played by ''that of '' in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. I understand that is acting as a demonstrative pronoun, thus ''that'' should modify the logical antecedent of GNP. However, the antecedent for ''that'' can grammatically only be ''eleventh largest GNP''. And that would make the meaning illogical. How, then the OA is correct? How ''that'' is conveniently able to modify only the GNP and not the entire noun phrase: ''eleventh largest (adjective)+ GNP (noun)''?

Would be helpful if some can resolve this doubt.

Regards
Vighnesh Kamath

Hello VIGHNESHKAMATH,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in such sentences, the pronouns "that" and "those" actually do refer to only the main noun of the relevant noun phrase. Thus, here, "that" refers only to "gross national product", rather than to "world’s eleventh largest gross national product".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

This is quite common in case of Demonstrative pronouns.

For example:

Peter's bicycle runs faster than that of Mike.

Here, that is referring to bicycle and not to Peter's bicycle.

Let's start with a simpler example of "that of" (the OA from this official question):

"The population of Japan is shrinking faster than that of any other nation and is projected to decline by 17 percent during the next half century."

The meaning here is pretty obvious: "The population of Japan is shrinking faster than the population of any other nation..."

But wait a minute: how did we know to replace "that" with just "population" and not with the entire noun phrase ("population of Japan")? Well, because the structure and context of the sentence made it clear that we were comparing the population of one place to the population of some other place(s). Also, comparing (1) the population of Japan to (2) the population of Japan of any other nation doesn't make any sense at all.

Is it grammatically possible for "that" to refer to "population of Japan"? Sure. But if the structure and context suggest a perfectly logical comparison and you have to do a lot of work to make it illogical, then the pronoun is probably okay. The same is true in choice (C).

I hope that helps!

Hello experts,
what exactly is wrong with A?
Can we say ",that" is always wrong?(although I haven't seen so far in correct choice)

I eliminated it due to - ,that!
looking forward to an expert opinion
Thanks!

Hello dcoolguy,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option A incorrectly uses the "comma + that" construction; please remember, "that" is never preceded by a comma, unless the comma sets off a phrase that conveys extra information.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hello Team,

May I know why option a is wrong...

Is it true that in op a'that is' should not be used to explain non essential modifier..
And which should be used to explain non essential modifier...

Yes, the first “that” is used as a relative pronoun at the beginning of a relative clause. But the comma indicates that it is non essential. But “that” cannot begin a non essential clause. Also use of “is” is questionable. Los Angeles doesn’t have a GNP. How can we say that it is greater than that of other nations? It’s all a hypothetical discussion.

Posted from my mobile device

How did we determine that option A is incorrect? How do you know "that is" after the comma incorrectly used?

One easy reason to eliminate (A) is that the original sentence has a comma splice error. Two parts of (A) could each be a complete sentence, and the two parts are joined with just a comma. This is a serious problem; an answer with a comma splice can never be the right answer.

The first part of (A) could be a complete sentence: If one were to count the Los Angeles metropolitan area as a separate nation, it would have the world’s eleventh largest gross national product

The second part of (A) could also be a complete sentence: That is bigger than that of Australia, Mexico, or the Netherlands
This is a weird meaningless sentence, but grammatically it IS a sentence.

To those who are asking why A is incorrect, please check back a bit--a few different experts have answered now. I think Karishma actually covered it quite succinctly 4 years ago.

Hello vinayakjjw,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option A incorrectly uses the construction "comma + that" to refer to extra information - information that is not vital to the core meaning of the sentence - namely, the fact that the hypothetical "the world’s eleventh largest gross national product" would be bigger than that of Australia, Mexico, or the Netherlands; remember, "comma + which" is used to refer to extra information, and "that" is used to refer to information important to the core meaning of the sentence.

To understand the concept of "Which" vs "That" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Good question! It tests the basic subjunctive usage.

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