Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treatie

Hi,
the answer choices are not the best possible..
what differentiates E from all other is the changing of ambigous 'they' with treaties..
and is the only reason why E can be the answer..
However th ebest constr will be..
Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless
now but that the treaties will be or could be useful in the future...
Rest all choices have ambigous 'they' and misplaced 'commas' before and after 'could'...
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Hi Chetan , Thanks for your reply . Though Choice E replaces the pronoun with the actual noun , It lacks the parallelism . I should have been "think that the treaties will be or could " -- as you pointed out. Also , "they " in other choices is not ambiguous , pronoun should not be a problem then ? .

Thanks .

Hi,
Deepak, all other choices are not flawless...
but if you say 'they' is not ambigous, you will be wrong..
THEY can refer to 'most americans' or 'treaties'..
but yes there is a llism issue in E, but the best that is available
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I marked E as the answer. Can anyone of you tell me why you think there is a parallelism error in it?
I want to know what did I overlook.

Thanks,

Problem of parallelism : "That - That " parallelism.

X but Y.

X - says "think that" ....

Y - needs to be in the same format ("But - That").

E is the most appropriate among the options.
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As you have pointed out all answer choices are flawed.
My doubt here is regarding "they"-doesn't it structurally refer to treaties.
that the treaties ....but that they?
for this reason i chose A.
Please shed some light on this.

can someone explain why "they" is ambiguous? Doesn't it refer to the nearest antecedent which is "international environmental treaties"?
on another note, what is the explanation for using "will be" in E as opposed to using "would" considering we are talking about future?

hi,

in E, there is no But-that!!

yes, I too feel the same.

In A (........think that.X............but that they....) I think They correctly refers to the subject of X.

IMO : A

Pls correct me if i am wrong here.

Hi,
As there is some confusion in the ambiguity of THEY..

the use of THAT makes the portion after THAT parallel..
so that X ...... but that they.....
x and they are PARALLEL , so less likely a pronoun can refer to something in parallel....
The pronoun has to refer to something before the parallelism started OR something in the parallelism should tell us that they is unambigously refering to the parallel portion..

so parallel parts can be written as..
Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless now.
But Most Americans surveyed think that they will, or could, be useful in the future.
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"They" term is used to replace person/people only. In this question, they cannot replace "international envorontment"

Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless
now but that they will, or could, be useful in the future.
(A) that they will, or could,
(B) that they would, or could
(C) they will be or could,
(D) think that they will be or could
(E) think the treaties will be or could

Only (E) resolves the pronoun ambiguity.

Ummm I have no idea who taught you that but they can refer to objects, only who/whom applies to people. Even his/her and she/him doesn't necessarily apply to people. The Statue of Liberty, she is quite a sight to behold.

Apples are great because they taste so good. What else would you use besides they?

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There's no way E is the answer...pronoun ambiguity is one of the last things you check for eliminations, as proper grammar takes precedence over pronoun ambiguity always on SC. The fact that E breaks parallelism is a much bigger no-no on the GMAT than pronoun ambiguity. A has to be the answer.

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Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless now but that they will, or could, be useful in the future.

" They " can have 2 referents as hihglighted in blue above..

Check all the options except (E) the pronoun THEY is ambigous...

Hence (E) is just perfect here...
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Hi I would like to know when you need to be explicit when referring back to a noun or when it is okay to use "they" such as in D in this question. What circumstances do you need to use the noun again to avoid confusion for pronoun use?

Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless
now but that they will, or could, be useful in the future.
(A) that they will, or could,
(B) that they would, or could
(C) they will be or could,
(D) think that they will be or could
(E) think the treaties will be or could

How I look at this , please tell me if it is correct or not

For (A) and (B)
that and that parallelism

Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental...
Most Americans surveyed think that that they will, or could ....

Here the second part is "they will or could" does not seem correct

(C) and (D)
"they" can refer to Americans or treaties

(E) Most Americans surveyed think that international environmental treaties are useless
now but think the treaties will be or could be useful in the future.
Although your ear aches for a "that" in the middle i am unable to see any grammatical issues

Thanks

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