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Sub 505 (Easy)|   Idioms/Diction/Redundancy|                                    
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 22 Aug 2017, 00:49
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'C' is correct - The sentence intends to show the effect of the new telecommunications company on the other phone companies. In the original sentence, however, the antecedent of the pronoun them is unclear; it may refer to companies or to customers. If it refers to customers, the sentence structure illogically has the new company forcing customers to offer competitive prices.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 03 Apr 2018, 00:03
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"them" in option A correctly refers to "companies" and does not refer to "customers". Hence, the usage of "them" is logically and grammatically correct.

As DmitryFarber rightly said, whenever we have an option between noun and pronoun, choose the noun. Hence we should go ahead with Option C
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(A) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them
(B) has not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also forced them
(C) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced these companies
(D) not only has captured customers from other phone companies but also these companies have been forced
(E) not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also has forced them

Not Only X but Y. Except A and C, in all other construction it is wrongly used.

B/w A & C, the choice is them vs these companies. It is always clearer if the noun is used instead of pronoun to avoid ambiguity. Hence, A is a better construction.

Ans: A
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 24 Jul 2019, 06:49
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maybeam
By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options
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Guys why is has correct in all the sentence?

I am just starting with prep and really bad at verbal. :please
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 27 Jul 2019, 22:06
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vyascd The use of "has" indicates the present perfect tense. This is commonly used to describe actions that began in the past and are still ongoing ("I have been working out every day") or achievements ("I have run a 5-minute mile"). In this case, the sentence seems to fit both criteria. The company has achieved something, and the effects it is having on its competitors and customers seem to be ongoing, rather than something that happened only in the past. This sentence certainly could have been written in the past, describing past actions only, but there's nothing wrong with the tense it is written in.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 28 Jul 2019, 01:09
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DmitryFarber
vyascd The use of "has" indicates the present perfect tense. This is commonly used to describe actions that began in the past and are still ongoing ("I have been working out every day") or achievements ("I have run a 5-minute mile"). In this case, the sentence seems to fit both criteria. The company has achieved something, and the effects it is having on its competitors and customers seem to be ongoing, rather than something that happened only in the past. This sentence certainly could have been written in the past, describing past actions only, but there's nothing wrong with the tense it is written in.
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DmitryFarber

There are two entities separated by and "By offering ... and a menu"

So I thought it should be have ( because it is plural )

Where am I going wrong?
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 30 Jul 2019, 01:05
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vyascd The whole first part ("By offering . . . mail") is a modifier, not the subject. We can tell because it starts with a preposition ("by"). The subject of the sentence is the new company--that is what has captured customers and forced competitors to offer lower prices. The initial adverbial modifier shows how the company has done this.

Also, note that the "and" in that initial modifier is joining "lower prices" and "a menu." These are the two things the new company is offering.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 24 Mar 2020, 05:11
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maybeam
By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options, such as caller identification and voice mail, the new telecommunications company has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them to offer competitive prices.

(A) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them
(B) has not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also forced them
(C) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced these companies
(D) not only has captured customers from other phone companies but also these companies have been forced
(E) not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also has forced them
Show more


(A) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them - Wrong: 1) Pronoun Ambiguity
(B) has not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also forced them - Wrong: 1) Pronoun Ambiguity 2) Idiom
(C) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced these companies - Correct
(D) not only has captured customers from other phone companies but also these companies have been forced - Wrong: 1) 2 Parallelism Issues
(E) not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also has forced them - Wrong: 1) Pronoun Ambiguity 2) Idiom
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 25 Mar 2020, 04:45
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DmitryFarber
There is no absolute rule for identifying the antecedent. "Them" can refer to any plural noun in the sentence, as long as "they," "them," or "their" hasn't already been used to refer to some other plural noun. However, it's important to use sentence structure and whatever you can gather of the author's intent to determine the correct antecedent. The GMAT doesn't test pronoun ambiguity much, but since we have a choice in this case to replace the unclear "them" with the actual noun, it's wise to do so.

As for the word but, it does not necessarily require a comma. You definitely use a comma if it's joining two independent clauses:

I'm enjoying the party, but I have to leave now.

However, there are many other cases where we don't need one:

The robot has a small but powerful engine.
All but one of the guests arrived late.
I aced the verbal section but timed out on the quant.

Or, as we see here . ..

She has not only written three bestselling novels but also developed fifteen important patents.

Note that the use of "has not only" vs. "not only has" cannot be decided in isolation. Either construction could work. "Not only . . . but also" is a parallelism indicator, so we can use "has" afterward as long as it is parallel. In other words, we can say "She has not only X but also Y" or "She not only HAS X but also HAS Y." We just can't say "She not only HAS X but also Y." Having said that, I prefer the usage in the correct answer. There's not much reason to use "has" twice.
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this is great explanation. pronoun error is "comparative error". this means pronoun ambiguity can be acceptable in OA, and choice A can be a correct answer if other choices are not better than choice A.

but inhere, pronoun ambiguity is an error because choice C is better. dont always consider a choice incorrect if it contain pronoun ambiguity as choice A dose. this scenario confuse us, the non natives. I call "comparative error" for pronoun ambiguity.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 30 Mar 2020, 12:18
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thangvietnam It's true that sometimes we have to compare the answer choices to see whether the GMAT offers a clearer option. For pronouns, that generally means that if we can replace a pronoun with the noun it refers to, we should probably do so. That option generally means that the GMAT considers the pronoun in question unclear or incorrect.

However, we don't have to pay any special attention to what A says. Answer choice A is no more or less likely to be correct than any other, and there is no reason to treat it as "the original." Just pick the choice that works!

Also, while we can see this error by comparison, we can also say that in general, the GMAT doesn't want us to use the same pronoun (for instance, variations of "they") to refer to two different things. We do this all the time in real life ("She told her that she was ready.") and as long as the meaning is clear, it's not really a problem, but on the GMAT, this is typically a violation.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 23 Apr 2022, 00:24
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DmitryFarber
There is no absolute rule for identifying the antecedent. "Them" can refer to any plural noun in the sentence, as long as "they," "them," or "their" hasn't already been used to refer to some other plural noun. However, it's important to use sentence structure and whatever you can gather of the author's intent to determine the correct antecedent. The GMAT doesn't test pronoun ambiguity much, but since we have a choice in this case to replace the unclear "them" with the actual noun, it's wise to do so.

As for the word but, it does not necessarily require a comma. You definitely use a comma if it's joining two independent clauses:

I'm enjoying the party, but I have to leave now.

However, there are many other cases where we don't need one:

The robot has a small but powerful engine.
All but one of the guests arrived late.
I aced the verbal section but timed out on the quant.

Or, as we see here . ..

She has not only written three bestselling novels but also developed fifteen important patents.

Note that the use of "has not only" vs. "not only has" cannot be decided in isolation. Either construction could work. "Not only . . . but also" is a parallelism indicator, so we can use "has" afterward as long as it is parallel. In other words, we can say "She has not only X but also Y" or "She not only HAS X but also HAS Y." We just can't say "She not only HAS X but also Y." Having said that, I prefer the usage in the correct answer. There's not much reason to use "has" twice.
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corect , choice A could be OA but we still has choice C, better choice. so, GMAT normally accept choice A but we have choice C more clear and so, better. we have to choose choice C. pronoun ambiguity is not absolute rule. method of best choice permits GMAT test us ability to analyze meaning and read well.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 25 Apr 2022, 04:34
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MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, egmat, I chose option A over C because:
- 'Them' can only logically refer to phone companies because customers can't offer competitive prices
- Prioritized concision over repetition

Can you please share your views on what should be the strategy in such cases?
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 25 Apr 2022, 05:11
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CrushTHYGMAT
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, egmat, I chose option A over C because:
- 'Them' can only logically refer to phone companies because customers can't offer competitive prices
- Prioritized concision over repetition

Can you please share your views on what should be the strategy in such cases?
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Hello CrushTHYGMAT,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the exception to pronoun ambiguity only applies if all but one possible referent produce a completely illogical or incoherent meaning; for example, "The brothers recently bought identical cars, and they are both electric." - in this case, pronoun ambiguity does not apply because it is entirely illogical to say that the brothers are electric, meaning "they" can only refer to "cars".

In this sentence, although it does not make much sense in this context, it is not impossible for "customers" to offer lower prices; thus, "them" is ambiguous.

To understand the concept of "Exceptions to Pronoun Ambiguity" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):


All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 25 Apr 2022, 11:01
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CrushTHYGMAT
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, egmat, I chose option A over C because:
- 'Them' can only logically refer to phone companies because customers can't offer competitive prices
- Prioritized concision over repetition

Can you please share your views on what should be the strategy in such cases?
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I'll add to what ExpertGlobal5 said by saying that a sentence version that rather clearly and effectively expresses an illogical meaning will generally be considered incorrect by the GMAT even if technically that sentence is correct.

So, in this case, even though we can tell that "them" in the (A) version logically refers to "other phone companies," the sentence is well structured to communicate that "the new telecommunications company" has done two things to "customers": it "has not only captured them ... but also forced them to offer competitive prices." That's really what the sentence appears to say even though we can tell that that meaning is not logical.

So, since the (A) version appears to clearly convey an illogical meaning, even though we can tell what it's meant to convey, it's considered incorrect.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 09 Jul 2022, 04:21
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DmitryFarber

Hi,

Would option A] and B] be correct, had we replaced 'them' with the correct noun. Does 'IT' after 'BUT' in option B] creates a problem because otherwise the meaning would be correct.


By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options, such as caller identification and voice mail, the new telecommunications company has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them to offer competitive prices.

(A) has not only captured customers from other phone companies but also forced them
(B) has not only captured customers from other phone companies, but it also forced them



DmitryFarber
There is no absolute rule for identifying the antecedent. "Them" can refer to any plural noun in the sentence, as long as "they," "them," or "their" hasn't already been used to refer to some other plural noun. However, it's important to use sentence structure and whatever you can gather of the author's intent to determine the correct antecedent. The GMAT doesn't test pronoun ambiguity much, but since we have a choice in this case to replace the unclear "them" with the actual noun, it's wise to do so.

As for the word but, it does not necessarily require a comma. You definitely use a comma if it's joining two independent clauses:

I'm enjoying the party, but I have to leave now.

However, there are many other cases where we don't need one:

The robot has a small but powerful engine.
All but one of the guests arrived late.
I aced the verbal section but timed out on the quant.

Or, as we see here . ..

She has not only written three bestselling novels but also developed fifteen important patents.

Note that the use of "has not only" vs. "not only has" cannot be decided in isolation. Either construction could work. "Not only . . . but also" is a parallelism indicator, so we can use "has" afterward as long as it is parallel. In other words, we can say "She has not only X but also Y" or "She not only HAS X but also HAS Y." We just can't say "She not only HAS X but also Y." Having said that, I prefer the usage in the correct answer. There's not much reason to use "has" twice.
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By offering lower prices and a menu of personal communications options 25 Jan 2025, 10:32
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