The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitati

Hi smokering.
The two "that" are different. The one in the question is "demonstrative pronoun". The one that you mention is "relative pronoun".

* Demonstrative pronoun can function by themselves as substitutes for specific nouns / antecedents. ==> The parallel nature must be maintained.
For example:
WRONG: The books I borrowed at the library yesterday are similar to THAT of your. "books" - plural is not parallel to "that" which refers to singular antecedent.
CORRECT: The books I borrowed at the library yesterday are similar to THOSE of your.

*Relative pronoun is used to introduce one type of subordinate clause called a relative clause
"that" modifies the preceding noun/noun phrase. It does not matter the preceding noun/noun phrase is singular or plural.
For example: The cars THAT have introduced in the auto show are very expensive.

Hope it helps.

A) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to that of a modern wristwatch: Incorrect. that of should be those of
B) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to a modern wristwatch's: Correct.
C) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to those of a modern wristwatch. Incorrect. Changes the subject for second clause.
D) The first personal computers' severe hardware and software limitations were similar to those of a modern wristwatch. Incorrect Changes the subject for second clause.
E) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to that of a modern wristwatch. Incorrect. Changes the subject for second clause.

IMO B. What does the answer guide say?

The non-underlined part start with were unable to perform..., whose subject should computers, as dictated by the meaning, not H/w or S/W
A has a comparison problem - you have limitationS in the 1st half but you that in the 2nd half of the comparison. that is singular but we need those to compare it with "limitationS"
So go with B.

Cheers

I am still confuse about - THAT.
Is that singular or plural..?
for eg: Expectations that are fulfilled ....<insert something>.. ..
Here that ----> expectations----->plural.

Someone plz clarify.

B) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to a modern wristwatch's: Correct.

The X had many problems similar to Y. The comparison is between personal computers and wristwatch. Not between problems of computers and problems of wristwatch.
That of/ those of is not required

Correct me if I am wrong..!!

IMO no it is not comparison between computer and wristwatch...rather
comparison is between problems of computer and problems of wristwatch.
we dont need that of / those of because WRISTWATCH'S (posessive form is already their.
THAT OF /THOSE OF is required when ONLY WRISTWATCH is present.

HOPE it is clear.

A good question, it involves importance of focus on non underlined portion to identify the right answer.

The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to that of a modern wristwatch and so were unable to perform the complex operations necessary for today's processor-intensive applications.

A) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to that of a modern wristwatch -- no proper reference of that available.

B) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to a modern wristwatch's -- comparison is ok also subject matches with sentence in non underlined part.

C) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to those of a modern wristwatch -- comparison is ok -- but limitations does not qualifies as logical subject of non underlined portion.

D) The first personal computers' severe hardware and software limitations were similar to those of a modern wristwatch -- similar to C

E) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to that of a modern wristwatch -- same as A

Hi chetan2u / daagh,

I have 1 doubt on on this question. Please help

What is the difference between Option C and D
C) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to those of a modern wristwatch
D) The first personal computers' severe hardware and software limitations were similar to those of a modern wristwatch.

I have learnt that we we try to avoid possessive's of non living thing.

Eg-
Scenario 1:
A) The shoes of Jim.
B) Jim's shoes.

Here we give preference to B.

Scenario 2:
A) The ABC law of government.
B) Government's ABC law.

Here we give preference to A.

In the above-mentioned examples its just the question of preferences but actually the meaning is same. (Correct me if I am wrong)

What to do if we come across any options like in this question.

Please assist.

Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar
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this is more of a guide line and not a POINTER to eliminate any choice; the logic is that NON LIVING things CANNOT possess but i have seen a OFFICIAL SC in which this RULE IS FLOUTED . so YES to ELIMINATE C and D it is better you go with the PARALLELISM issue as both are WRONG in that CONTEXT

Hi aditya8062,

Thanks alot for quick reply.

So, in general can we say that.

eg 1- A of B is similar to (that/those) of C.
Here that/those refer to A.

Eg 2- B's A is similar to (that/those) of C.
Here that/those refer to B.

Please assist.

Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar
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hi,
It may be correct that few follow the rule avoiding the 'possessive ' of inanimate nouns. But that is not followed in GMAT and most of the cases in real world..
'S or of are ok till the time they are not interfering in the meaning part of it.
Generally this will not be a reason to eliminate a choice..
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this is again subjected to condition as what structure is available to you ---->by this i mean that you have to select an option that is MOST PARALLEL -----> so "A of B is similar to (that/those) of C" is MORE PARALLEL THAN "B's A is similar to (that/those) of C." ---->by this i mean that your example 2 is NOT WRONG but is inferior to your example 1 --->but TRUST ME GMAC will never make you choose between these TWO options (example 2 is ALSO correct but given a option of example 1 ,it will be prudent to pick option 1)

pronouns such as THAT / THOSE create new copies so by that standard they can refer to things mentioned in previous clause WITHOUT CARRYING the MODIFIERS in the previous clause

please note that here both C and D are WRONG for PARALLELISM issue and not for the COMPARISON issue ---ALSO the GUIDELINE that you have pointed is TRUE (that non living things CANNOT POSSESS); however do not use it as an ELIMINATOR

I do not think the difference is anything more than notional or customary. We can always have a phrase as ‘the computer’s circuit’ or ‘the interest of the teenagers’.
Therefore, when you see such a thing, perhaps it is better to ignore it totally, as I do not think GMAT will be keen on testing this aspect
However, there are other solid reasons to dump both C and D because the sentence structure is faulty with the subject of the first IC unable to stand for the subject of the second IC logically and hence both these choices should be considered fragments. One must look for such reasons.
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B) may only be the right answer because all others are worse.

a) That isn't good as it's a plural subject because of the and.
c) comparing software and hardware to wristwatches
d) Same mistake as c
e) same mistake as C

B) Not sure how I feel about a sentence saying: the first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitation similar to a modern wristwatch's. I really don't like the use of the possessive here. It makes the sentence super unclear in my view.

the Germans had severe missteps and technical issues similar to a modern China's.

I really don't like the use of the possessive here. It makes the sentence super unclear in my view. I can't even really think of a sentence that makes sense using the possessive the way they did.

The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to that of a modern wristwatch and so were unable to perform the complex operations necessary for today's processor-intensive applications.

A) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to that of a modern wristwatch :that cannot refer to plural noun when used as pronoun,we need those
B) The first personal computers had severe hardware and software limitations similar to a modern wristwatch's
C) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to those of a modern wristwatch not parallel to so were we need computers
D) The first personal computers' severe hardware and software limitations were similar to those of a modern wristwatch not parallel to so were we need computers
E) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to that of a modern wristwatch not parallel to so were we need computers

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION FROM VERITAS
This sentence uses a compound predicate, with a single subject controlling two verbs. Answers (C), (D), and (E) all use the subject "The...limitations", which does not connect to the second verb in the clause "were unable to perform". This creates a Sentence Construction error, so these choices can all be eliminated. Answer (A) uses the relative pronoun phrase "that of a modern wristwatch", while (B) uses the acceptable possessive case "a modern wristwatch's", which ends with an implied relative pronoun. Answer (A)'s use of "that", however, is incorrect: the pronoun antecedent is the plural "limitations", and requires the relative pronoun "those". Thus, only answer (B) grammatically expresses the intent of the original sentence.

I chose the B as the answer but wanted to understand why the other options were wrong.

Wanted to understand why C , D and E are wrong.

C) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to those of a modern wristwatch

D) The first personal computers' severe hardware and software limitations were similar to those of a modern wristwatch

E) The severe hardware and software limitations of the first personal computers were similar to that of a modern wristwatch

This is one of those cases where it's so important to recognize that the whole sentence matters - it's really easy to compare answer choices against each other and forget that the choices have to fit back in to the larger sentence. Note that the immediate beginning of the non-underlined portion is: "and so were unable to perform..." The "and" means that we're connecting ideas and "were unable to perform" means that you need connect verbs from the same subject. ("The subject <verb> and so were unable to perform..." So you need a subject that makes logical sense with "were unable to perform complex operations."

C, D, and E all use "limitations" as the subject - but that doesn't make logical sense because you don't expect limitations to be able to perform complex operations. You need the subject to be "computers" because you would expect them to be able to perform complex operations, if it weren't for those limitations.

And the larger lesson - if you find yourself debating between really similar answer choices, make sure you go back to consider how those answer choices would fit within the larger sentence. That's an easy step to overlook when you're in the heat of comparing A vs. B vs. C..., looking only at choices and kind of overlooking the original prompt itself, so make sure you're very conscious of that.

I have a question regarding the usage of had in the OA , Can someone please justify that usage ?
(Though there are reasons why we could have eliminated the rest but initially i went with C.)

As per my understanding "Had" is used for a past perfect tense, in which an action was completed at some point in the past before something else happened.

So as per the above explanation am i right to say - first personal computers had some complication and at later point in past the wristwatch also developed some.(I am unable to see the verb/action for a simple past event).

Example (Courtesy gmatclub)
I had only just put the washing out(So i first put the clothes out) when it started(simple past event) to rain!

Here the usage is apt.
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