D

Let me take a plunge at this, Here we are talking about the speed limit which is set on a city's highways

IMO Subject should be speed limit

I could have worked with E, which could have spoken about “reasonable and prudent,” or the limit but the word "their" makes it incorrect

Retake at this

Kindly read the inline post by expert.

You should be able to understand better

Because of pronoun ambguity and D is more precise

Answer will be D

AsadAbu, do share the OE.
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automatically shared KanishkM!

The problem with the singular "its" is that it doesn't refer to what you want it to. We want the "it" to refer to Montana. In this sentence, however,

Quote:

Montana's highways

is a possessive noun....and possessive nouns are adjectives. Antecedents cannot refer to an adjective. This piece of knowledge eliminates A, B, C, and E.
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anothermillenial , you refer here to the "poison pronoun" rule, in which a possessive noun may not be the antecedent of a pronoun.

Most of the time, that guideline will be true. Sometimes that guideline will not hold.
This guideline is still taught as if it were 100% solid. It is not.
You would have no way of knowing that fact, so I address the matter in this post.

Sometimes a possessive noun can be the antecedent of both an object pronoun (her/him/it) and a subject pronoun (she/he/it).

I have written two posts about this issue in which I lay out the guideline, its history, and its current standing.

GMAC signaled awhile ago that a possessive noun could be the antecedent of an object pronoun.
GMAC signaled three years ago, in OG 2016, that a possessive noun could be the antecedent of a subject pronoun.
(In fact, GMAT had signaled the latter a decade ago, on a paper test.)

The poison pronoun rule is not a rule. It's a guideline.
Major and well-respected sources have not stayed abreast of the issue.

I wrote an overview of GMAC's evolution with respect to the pronoun/antecedent rule iin this post.
I wrote an even more in-depth response about that same topic in this post. The second post is more thorough.

I urge people to read the official questions to which I cite in those posts. (The second post has all the links.)
Those official questions contain a possessive noun that acts as the antecedent of a pronoun,
and the pronoun is not possessive.

That is, no controversy exists if a possessive pronoun such as her has an antecedent that is also possessive, such as Cecilia's:
Cecilia's book was not published because of her procrastination.

But official questions have also used possessive nouns as antecedents for pronouns that are not possessive.

I suspect that the Powerscore materials may not be updated.
The "poison pronoun" guideline will work in this instance. Occasionally, the guideline will not work.

I hope that helps.
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I doubt that my reasoning, below, will be in agreement with the OE from Powerscore's author.
I do not know whether Powerscore teaches the not-ironclad "poison pronoun rule," which I address above.

Split #1: IF a pronoun is needed, their, plural, does not match Montana, the state, singular.
Highways don't "possess" drivers.

Eliminate A, C, and E

Split #2: concision and logic

Can we say the same thing in fewer words?
In this case, yes.
We don't need its.

The "no speed limit" speed limit signs were in Montana.
The people who were driving 100+ mph, including yours truly (true story), were in Montana.
Where else would drivers be following signs that were in Montana?
Alaska?

Eliminate option B.

The correct answer is D
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Official Explanation:
The sentence has an ambiguous pronoun: their. Is their referring to Montana or to highways? If it is referring to Montana, the possessive noun is functioning as an adjective. Therefore, replacing their with its in Choice (B) creates an agreement problem with its and the antecedent highways. Choices (C) and
(E) still contain their. Choice (D) is correct.

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