Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding princip

Let me cite an interesting case. This is a question fro OG 12
SC Q 10

10. Carnivorous mammals can endure what would
otherwise be lethal levels of body heat because they
have a heat-exchange network which kept the brain
from getting too hot.
(A) which kept
(B) that keeps
(C) which has kept
(D) that has been keeping
(E) having kept

The ununderlined portion has a pronoun they. What does it refer to? Mammals without doubt. Can we say they is referring to lethal levels just because that is also an eligible contender along with mammals?. As per MGMAT, they may be ambiguous. However, GMAT has passed it refrring to mammals


Another example ( it may be from GPREP)

In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, most of them as large as or larger than Jupiter, which circle other stars.
A. most of them as large as or larger than Jupiter, which circle
B. most of them as large or larger than Jupiter and circling
C. most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling
D. mostly at least as large as Jupiter, which circle
E. mostly as large or larger than Jupiter, circling

What does them refer to? Definitely not astronomers but logically only to the planets. The correct answer is C according to GMAT, accepting them as referring to planets, while we can argue that they can also refer to other eligible plural nouns.

OK good; The first point says crisply what I have maintained elaborately, I suppose. I haven't seen much of MGMAT, except for a few quotes like from contributors like you. . A kudo to you for all the pains you took to make this point clear for the benefit of other audience

Item in a list construction is "A, B and C"
This is violated in B and C. Eliminated. B also has a "it" issue.
D apparently is correct but "they" is a much clearer pronoun for the enitites rather than "these". "these" is a demonstrative pronoun which is mostly used for phrases like "these clubs", "these cars" et al.
E. The defence of future economic crises is not happening magically out of thin air. The companies, investors and the govt must make it happen. E avoids the intention. Hence incorrect. I could post 2 amazing OG 13 Very hard question based on this intent part!
A is correct!

Thirteen states from all regions of the country announced a plan to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt emission limits that would be far stricter than the federal rules.

(A) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt-------- the main clause is in past tense, the sub-clause at the end is in future past; but only the prepositional phrase is in simple future, thus flaunting a discordant shift of tense.


(B) to impose new controls on truck and bus engines' pollution by the joint adoption of -- by the joint adoption is unidiomatic

(C) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines by jointly adopting--- best choice; jointly adopting now properly modifies plans to impose new controls

(D) for imposing new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines, and jointly adopting ---- for imposing is unidiomatic; jointly adopting should modify the new plans, rather than being another independent factor]

(E) for imposing new controls on truck and bus engine pollution in the joint adoption of – for imposing is unidiomatic; bus engine pollution in the joint adoption is jarring’ it should at least be engines’ pollution

This is gotta be C because

(A) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt
IN that is wrong - In that used for limiting statements; but the sentence is showing how these states are imposing pollution control

(B) to impose new controls on truck and bus engines' pollution by the joint adoption of
states are not placing control on truck; they are placing controls from both pollution from truck and bus engines

(C) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines by jointly adopting
CORRECT

(D) for imposing new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines, and jointly adopting
For imposing is not OK; to show the intent "to +verb" works well

(E) for imposing new controls on truck and bus engine pollution in the joint adoption of
For imposing is not OK; to show the intent "to +verb" works well

cheers

I am surprised by the correct sentence seen here :
https://www.mckinsey.com/insights/corpor ... nst_crises

The correct idiom is to defend against. So C and D are out. B has subject pronoun error 'it'
A and E both seem right logically and grammatically but ' They' in A is pronoun for ' Companies +investors +governments' Or just one of them?? E tackles this ambiguity by using passive voice... Future economic crises.. defended (by companies, investors, governments)
So E is the best.

Posted from my mobile device

would love to see the OE & OA.

I picked E because in A the pronoun "they" is ambiguous.
E sounds better, but this choice doesn't show any correlation between relearning and defending against economic crises.
who is going to defend?

Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.

A. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.

CORRECT: This answer choice conveys the intended meaning in a clear and idiomatically correct fashion. One may argue that pronoun ‘they’ is ambiguous, but remember that logic is the ultimate factor in pronoun reference issues: of the two eligible plural nouns [(1) ‘plural compound noun – companies, investors and governments’ and (2) ‘guiding principles’], only the (1) makes sense, after all how can guiding principles defend against future economic crises? Furthermore, ‘IF’ is a subordinate conjunction and subject of the subordinate clause can logically refer to the subject of the main clause


B. Companies, investors, along with governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if it is to defend against future economic crises.

Construction/Meaning: construction ‘Companies, investors, along with governments’ has two issues:
1. Construction: conjunctions such as ‘along with/ together with/ in addition to/ etc.’ are normally used to add descriptive/non-essential information and are normally separated by commas from the rest of the sentence: Mike, along with John, rides a bicycle to school
2. Meaning: the author intends to put an equal emphasis on [(1) Companies, (2) investors, and (3) governments] to have to relearn the guiding principles of value creation; whereas, this answer choice attempts to put main emphasis on [(1) Companies, (2) investors] and to add [(3) governments] as extra/non-essential information;
Switching conjunction ‘along with’ to conjunction ‘and’ would solve both issues
Pronoun: Conjunction ‘and’ in a list of items constitutes a plural quantity; therefore, the subject is the plural compound noun: ‘companies, investors, and governments’, hence singular pronoun ‘it’ and the singular verb ‘is’ do not agree in number with the plural compound noun: ‘companies, investors, and governments’;


C. Companies, as well as investors and governments, must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend from future economic crises.

Meaning: the author intends to put an equal emphasis on [(1) Companies, (2) investors, and (3) governments] to have to relearn the guiding principles of value creation; whereas, this answer choice attempts to put main emphasis on [(1) Companies], and to add [(2) investors and (3) governments] as extra/non-essential information;
Unidiomatic: In the given context, construction ‘defend from’ is unidiomatic; the idiomatically correct expression would be ‘defend against’;


D. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if these are to defend from future economic crises.

Pronoun: This answer choice incorrectly uses indicative pronoun ‘these’ to refer to the plural compound noun: ‘companies, investors, and governments’;
o It's always wrong to use ‘these’ as a PRONOUN in formal English.
o Anything in which ‘these’ is used as a NOUN is incorrect: if you see ‘these are...’, ‘these show that’, etc. then, in general, it's wrong;
o The only acceptable use of ‘these’ in formal written English is as an ADJECTIVE + the noun: these facts, these rumors, etc.;
Unidiomatic: In the given context, construction ‘defend from’ is unidiomatic; the idiomatically correct expression would be ‘defend against’;


E. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if future economic crises are to be defended.

Meaning: passive construction ‘economic crises are to be defended’ changes the intended meaning of the sentence, nonsensically implying that ‘the companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles in order TO DEFEND ECONOMIC CRISES’; obviously, ‘Companies, investors, and governments want to defend THEMSELVES against future economic crises, not the other way around’

If a pronoun that is the subject of a clause has two possible antecedents, one of which is the subject of another clause within the sentence, the pronoun would, by virtue of parallelism, unambiguously refer to the subject antecedent. Therefore "they" clearly refers to "Companies, investors, and governments" (both are subjects of their respective clauses) - such a construction is not considered ambiguous in GMAT.

OA is A - topics merged.

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