Old English had three genders that resembled those of the

Question

Old English had three genders that resembled those of the Germans  and so was probably very difficult for a foreign traveler to learn in a short time.

a] Old English had three genders that resembled those of the Germans

b] Old English had three genders resembling those of the Germans

c] The three genders of Old English resembled a German's

d] Old English's three genders resembled the German's

e] The three genders of old English that resembled those of the Germans

icandy · Answer

C D E have issues.

B uses resembling in a continuous tense. It is not needed.

A remains

LAKSH0328 · Answer

a] Old English had three genders that resembled those of the Germans

b] Old English had three genders resembling those of the Germans  => sounds like old english had many genders out of which 3 resembled the german genders

c] The three genders of Old English resembled a German's  => a German

d] Old English's three genders resembled the German's  = > Gender can not resemble German's

e] The three genders of old English that resembled those of the Germans  => no main verb

From POE , IMO A.

seofah · Answer

I chose D on this - the only choice that is coherent and parallel.

Economist · Answer

The sentence talks abt German language. So German's is the correct usage.
Between C and D.
C- a German's is not correct.

I choose D.
What is OA?

smarinov · Answer

I choose D as well we are comparing German language and not Germans.

AmitGUPTA · Answer

please provide Official Answer ?

seofah · Answer

Guys, I initially chose D, but now I realise that we need "old english" as the subject of the sentence. It is "old english" that was "very difficult", not "genders". So, it looks like we need to choose between A and B.

I have 2 issues with A and B:
1. How "Old English had three genders" can be parallel to "those of the Germans"?
2. Grammatically A and B are exactly the same - "that resembled" and "resembling" mean the same thing. So, how would you choose between the two?

On the test day, however, I would choose B only because "resembling" takes the tense of the main clause(simple past); even if "had" and "that resembled" in A are both in the simple past tense, I think, specifying the tense of "resemble" leaves doubt that the two events ( having and resembling) started and finished at not exactly the same time.

bigfernhead · Answer

That's the same reason I went with B.

tusharvk · Answer

we are talking perhaps about the language english vs german; hence, germans is out.
Thus, I went with D.

vscid · Answer

You are absolutely right (for what you said in italics)
Because of 1. as mentioned above, a MGMAT instructor mentioned that this may not even be a GMAT quality sentence.
In any case,
OA B.

craky · Answer

In my opinion, although B is OA, it should sound like:

Old English had three genders resembling those of the German (not Germans - because German is the language, Germans are people, who live in Germany)

daagh · Answer

Before delving into this question, let us remember something.  English  refers to the language of English; t he English  refers to the people of English. T he Germans  refers to the people of Germany. If we want to refer to German language, we have just to say  German . German being a language, we can not describe it as  Germans or a German or the Germans . In all the choices, the genders of the second part do not refer to German language but to the German natives. 
Viewed that way, how good is the comparison in each choice, comparing the genders of a language to the genders of the people. I am unable to select any choice as legitimate

daagh · Answer

Ignoring the use of the article ‘ the ’ with a language, if we have to choose among the choices, then we may have to lean on A and B for the sake of maintaining the subject in both parts of this two part sentence. But between A and B , I would rather prefer A for the reason that the use of a relative clause using ‘that’, by virtue of its restrictive nature, pin- points the resemblance between the two objects, namely, the genders, more sharply than the present participial ‘resembling’.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Old English had three genders that resembled those of the

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