Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if

D. Executives’ being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.

"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.

GMATNinja
Thank you for the broad explanation. The explanation helps me a lot, but I intend to have a short response for the explanation D. GMAC made this sorta things flexible, right? I saw few official questions where ''Non-possessive pronouns'' refers to ''possessive nouns''!

This is one of the OG questions that causes the most trouble, partly because a lot of GMAT test-takers have an (occasionally incorrect) impulse to automatically eliminate any answer choice with the word "being."

But we'll get to that. Let's take these buggers in order:



That second "it" is the big problem here: "makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble..." I suppose that "it" could refer to "heavy commitment" or "course of action", but neither of those would make any sense. (A) is gone.



This is fairly subtle, but the subject doesn't make a whole lot of sense with the main verb here. "An executive... makes missing signs of incipient trouble... likely when they do appear." The pronoun "they" is OK, but it doesn't make logical sense to say that "an executive makes missing signs of trouble likely..." Also, I see no good reason use "ones" here -- in theory, "ones" would refer to very specific signs of trouble, and there's no good reason to use "ones" when a simple "them" would work. (B) is gone.



The "it" is a problem here: "it" generally refers to the nearest singular noun. In this case, "it" would seem to refer to "trouble," and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "Course of action" would work, but that's much farther back in the sentence.

To be fair, ambiguous pronouns aren't always wrong on the GMAT, so if you want to be conservative, you could keep (C) for now. But as we'll see in a moment, (E) is a much better option.



"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.



There are lots of pronoun issues in the other answer choices, but we're all good with (E): the ambiguous "it" we saw in (C) isn't here at all, and "them" and "they" very clearly refer to "signs of incipient trouble." The subject "being heavily committed to a course of action" works nicely with the main verb phrase ("is likely to make an executive miss signs of trouble..."), so (E) is an upgrade from (B).

That leaves "being" as the only reasonable objection to (E). But "being" is absolutely fine here: it's just a noun, also known as a gerund in this case. "Being" is no different than any other gerund. So (E) is our answer.

Please see last Monday's Topic of the Week for more on gerunds and other "-ing" words on the GMAT: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html.

egmat karishma GMATNinja

"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.


What is the issue with option D?
I've seen OG questions in which pronouns refer back to possessive forms?

Here you're saying it cannot!

Has GMAC evolved with this theory of pronoun referring to possessives during years?
Pls clarify because I am seeing both examples as correct

D. Executives’ being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.

"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.

egmat karishma GMATNinja

"Them" is trying to refer back to a possessive pronoun, "executives'", and that's wrong on the GMAT. Non-possessive pronouns (they, them, he, she, it) can't refer back to possessive nouns on the GMAT. So (D) is gone.



What is the issue with option D?

I've seen OG questions in which pronouns refer back to possessive forms?

Here you're saying it cannot!

Has GMAC evolved with this theory of pronoun referring to possessives during years?

Pls clarify because I am seeing both examples as correct

Is it the only sole reason to reject D? But as per GMAT, pronouns can refer back to possessive, right?

What will be the level of this question on the GMAT test?

Can second it not refer to executive in the first option? Can anyone explain?

This is one of the OG questions that causes the most trouble, partly because a lot of GMAT test-takers have an (occasionally incorrect) impulse to automatically eliminate any answer choice with the word "being."

But we'll get to that. Let's take these buggers in order:



That second "it" is the big problem here: "makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble..." I suppose that "it" could refer to "heavy commitment" or "course of action", but neither of those would make any sense. (A) is gone.

Hey GMATNinja,

I am a big fan but for the life of me I can't understand why you eliminated A here. Why is the second "it" considered a pronoun needing an antecedent?

I am no good with fancy jargon, but we do use "it" in a different sense too, right? For example: "Studying diligently makes it likely that you will do well on the GMAT". Is that sentence wrong? Because "it" doesn't have an antecedent there either. Why can't the 2nd "it" be used in that sense?

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one problem at at time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! To begin, let's take a closer look at the original question, and highlight any major differences we spot in orange:

Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

A. Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.
B. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.
C. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.
D. Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.
E. Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

After a quick glance over the options, we have a few areas we can focus on. However, this is a question where the entire sentence is underlined, so we need to treat this differently than we do other questions! Whenever you see a question with the entire sentence underlined, there are a few areas you should pay attention to first to narrow down your options:

1. Modifiers
2. Parallelism
3. Meaning
4. Structure

Let's start with #3 on our list: meaning. There is also another glaring difference we see throughout each of the options: PRONOUNS! There are a LOT of pronouns in these sentences, so let's do a quick check to make sure all the pronouns have clear antecedents, and rule out any that don't:

A. Heavy commitment by an executive to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes it likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

first "it" = refers to "course of action" --> OK
second "it" = doesn't refer to anything, so we call this a "dummy pronoun" --> WRONG
"them" = refers to "signs of incipient trouble" --> OK

B. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that worked well in the past, makes missing signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting ones likely when they do appear.

"one" = unclear; could refer to either "An executive" or "a course of action" --> WRONG
"ones" = misleading; changes meaning from referring to "signs of incipient trouble" to some other signs we haven't mentioned yet --> WRONG

C. An executive who is heavily committed to a course of action is likely to miss or misinterpret signs of incipient trouble when they do appear, especially if it has worked well in the past.

"they" = unclear; could refer to "An executive," "a course of action," or "signs of incipient trouble" --> WRONG
"it" = refers back to "a course of action" --> OK

D. Executives' being heavily committed to a course of action, especially if it has worked well in the past, makes them likely to miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpreting them when they do appear.

"it" = refers to "a course of action" --> OK
first "them" = refers to "Executives" --> WRONG (see below)
second "them" = refers to "signs" --> WRONG (see below)

So why are both "them" pronouns wrong? Because placing two of the same pronoun so close together is confusing to readers. It's too ambiguous which "them" is referring to which antecedent. Yes, you could do the hard work and figure it out, but reading shouldn't require the reader to do the heavy lifting.

E. Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear.

"one" = refers to "a course of action" --> OK
"them" = refers to "signs of incipient trouble" --> OK

Well there you have it - option E is the correct choice! It's the only sentence that used clear pronouns.


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