Molly Ireland argues that though we are seldom aware of

Dear sivasanjeev,
I am happy to help.


A. Molly Ireland argues that though we are seldom aware of nuances of the languages people speak, their use of personal pronouns, articles or contractions, among many other linguistic choices provides clues to the mental state or social status.
The parallelism of the list is faulty here --- it's unclear where the objects of the preposition "of" end and the subject of the verb "provides" begins. Furthermore, why is this very singular, if the subject appears plural. This one has fatal flaws and cannot be correct.

B. Though we are seldom if ever aware of it, Molly Ireland argues, nuances of people's language — such as their use of personal pronouns, articles or contractions, among many other linguistic choices — provide clues to their mental state or social status.
This one offsets the list of nuances with dashes: a clever structure. Good SV agreement. Good parallelism. This one is promising. The only problem is the use of the pronoun, referring to an antecedent in the possessive. Can we use a noun in the possessive as the antecedent for a pronoun in the possessive? This is a controversial point of grammar: grammatical conservatives (myself included) would say "no," but grammatical liberals would say "yes." The GMAT SC tends to be very conservative in its choices, and I have never seen this structure as part of a correct answer on the GMAT SC. This is, in my opinion, the only un-GMAT-like aspect of this otherwise strong question.

C. Although we are never aware of the nuances, people's language — Molly Ireland argues — provide clues to their mental state or social status through the linguistic choices such as the usage of personal pronouns, articles or contractions.
What's awkward about this is --- it's now unclear what the "nuances" are, and it's unclear whether the list at the end of the sentence constitutes them. Furthermore, this one has a very roundabout structure --- "through the choice of ..." = very passive and indirect. This one is incorrect.

D. If we are ever aware of the nuances of people's language, their usage of personal pronouns, articles and contractions, we would have understood their mental state or social status — as argued by Molly Ireland.
Hmm. A logical mistake. If we aren't aware of the nuances, then we won't understand their mental state, but from there, it's a large leap to say that understanding the nuances would be enough to understand their mental state. Because of this logical leap, a change in meaning from the original, this is wrong.

E. Molly Ireland argues that though we are seldom aware of it, nuances of people's language — such as its use of personal pronouns, articles as well as contractions, among few other linguistic choices — provides clues to the people's mental state or social status.
This is another logical mistake, and the mistake concerns the pronoun within the dashes. The "use of personal pronouns, etc. ..." that "provides clues" is not the general language itself, the abstract rules that everyone shares. That doesn't provide any clues about anyone. What provide clues are the way that one person makes one choice and another person makes another choice. In other words, the pronoun modifying "use" has to be the plural pronoun referring to "people". This is wrong.

Does all this make sense?
Mike