Dark Chocolate has been know to have great health benefits

Dear CARK,
In those choices, "it" and "its" refer back to "dark chocolate," the subject of the first half of the sentence.
Mike

Thanks

Can you please explain why "its" is not referring to "the ingredients"?

The pronoun "its" is the possessive form of the singular pronoun "it." The words "its X" are equivalent to "the X of it."

Singular pronouns require singular modifiers, and "the ingredients" is plural.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dear CARK,
I'm happy to respond.

As is typical, this question from GMAT Prep is truly excellent. As someone who writes questions, I am always in awe of the high quality of questions that that GMAC consistently publishes. This question, though superficially similar, is actually quite different from the question above.

You see, I would say the "its" is perfectly correct ---- the topic of the entire sentence is clearly "tea," and the "its" could be read as referring to that. For example, if you replace "its" with "tea's," it works logically in any of the five answer choices. A pronoun issue is not the problem here.

The first two --- "In addition to its possibility to/for ..." ---- what a atrocious swollen monstrosity that is! Those two seem to be competing in a context for the longest and most awkward way to convey this information. That's why (A) and (B) are wrong.

The problem with (C) and (D) concerns the usage of the words "besides." If X and Y are both nouns, then the structure "besides X, Y ... " demands that X and Y are comparable. A typical mistake pattern would be to juxtapose the "besides" phrase with the wrong part of the sentence:
Besides France, Herbert traveled to ...
WRONG! "France" and "Herbert" are not two comparable items.
With this in mind, think about (C) and (D):
(C) ... besides the possibility .... the brewed leaves ...
(D) ... besides the ... preventing and inhibiting .. the brewed leaves ....
The "brewed leaves" are concrete nouns, not comparable to a "possibility" or to abstract actions, "preventing and inhibiting." Notice that the complex gerund, a gerund with a definite article, is more "noun-like." That's why (C) and (D) are wrong.

We have eliminated everything else, so we hope (E) works! Sure enough, it does. The idiomatic structure:
"beside" + [simple gerund]. [noun] ...
is 100% correct, and it is understood that the noun is the actor of the action of the verb in gerund form. Thus,
(E) ... besides possibly preventing or inhibiting ... the brewed leaves ...
is a perfect correct structure.

The contrast in the last three answer choices here is an absolutely brilliant stroke on GMAC's part. This is a fabulous question.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dark Chocolate has been know to have great health benefits; in addition to its possibilities for lowering blood pressure, the ingredients of dark chocolate may also help it to serve as an anti-depressant.

A) in addition to its possibilities for lowering
--> wordy.

B) in addition to its possibilities to lower

C) besides the possibility that it lowers

D) besides the possible lowering of

E) besides possibly lowering
--> concise and correct.

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