The governors team of advisors, including her education and political

Official Explanation:

The singular subject in the original sentence, “the governor’s team,” agrees with the singular verb phrase “has not been.”

(A) CORRECT. This choice is correct as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) The subject-verb relationship is incorrect. The singular subject of the sentence, “the governor’s team,” does not agree with the plural verb phrase “have not been.”

(C) The subject-verb relationship is incorrect. The singular subject of the sentence, “the governor’s team,” does not agree with the plural verb phrase “have not been.” Also, the subject pronoun “she” has no antecedent. The subject pronoun “she” cannot refer back to the possessive noun, “governor’s.” Only possessive pronouns, such as “her,” can refer to possessive nouns. Finally, the phrase “her proposal on controversial education reform” changes the original meaning. This phrasing implies that the education reform is controversial. However, it is clear in the original sentence that it is the governor’s proposal that is controversial, not education reform itself.

(D) The subject pronoun “she” has no antecedent. The subject pronoun “she” cannot refer back to the possessive noun, “governor’s.” Only possessive pronouns, such as “her,” can refer to possessive nouns.

(E) The subject pronoun “she” has no antecedent. The subject pronoun “she” cannot refer back to the possessive noun, “governor’s.” Only possessive pronouns, such as “her,” can refer to possessive nouns. Also, the phrase “her proposal on controversial reform in education” changes the original meaning. This phrasing implies that the education reform is controversial. However, it is clear in the original sentence that it is the governor’s proposal that is controversial, not education reform itself. Finally, the phrase "to make comments" is not as concise as the original "for comment."

'she' has to refer back to a noun. There is no noun present

I'll go with A

Cheers,
Unplugged

My choice is A too, and below is my explanation:
In A, the singular subject in the original sentence, “the governor’s team” agrees with the singular verb phrase “has not been.”

B. have not been available for comment since the governor released her controversial education reform proposal - The subject-verb relationship is incorrect. The singular subject of the sentence, “the governor’s team,” does not agree with the plural verb phrase “have not been.”
C. have not been available for comment since she released her proposal on controversial education reform - Same as B. This sentence also changes the meaning because the phrasing “her proposal on controversial education reform” implies that the education reform is controversial.
D. has not been available for comment since she released her controversial education reform proposal - The subject pronoun “she” has no antecedent. The subject pronoun “she” cannot refer back to the possessive noun, “governor’s.” Only possessive pronouns, such as “her,” can refer to possessive nouns.
E. has not been available to make comments since she released her proposal on controversial reform in education - Same as D and Also, like in C, the phrasing “her proposal on controversial education reform” implies that the education reform is controversial. It is clear from the original sentence that, it is the governor’s proposal that is controversial and not the education reform itself. Finally, "for comment" is more concise than "to make comments".

Please let me know if that makes sense.

We need singular verb "has" because of the singular noun "team"

that leaves A, D and E.

D and E uses "she" but "she" has no referent. "governor's team" is possesive noun and "she" cannot be used to refer to the possessive noun. We need proper noun "governor" which is correctly done in A.

There is no requirement to use prepositions to make the sentence wordy.

For eg. prince sat on a gold throne OR prince sat on the throne of gold.

Sentence one is preferable, the structure S + V + ADJ + NOUN preferred over S + V + NOUN + prepositional phrase.

I hope that is fine

Hi guys,

I have seen this question on manhattan gmat and even though I got the correct answer but still was not really convinced by the use of the pronoun "her" to refer to the governor who is only present in the possessive "the governor's team". I also read this topic about this sentence where some people seem to believe it is a wrong usage :
https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-governors-team-of-advisors-including-her-education-and-75712.html?hilit=The%20governor%E2%80%99s%20team%20of%20advisors


Please can somebody convincingly give the final word on whether a pronouns which refers to an antecedent in the possessive form are accepted by the GMAT or not ? Thanks a lot!

Hi GMATNinja ,

Here, In option E - available to make comments is grammatically correct or wrong ? . Just a general doubt.
I agree she is wrong in E.
I was just wondering if "available for comment" is better than "available to make comment " .Please throw some light here. .

"Available for comment" is the way somebody would typically say this, but I'm not 100% sure that "available to make comments" is necessarily wrong -- it would just be a little bit unusual to say it that way.

And I think it's very, very unlikely that you'll ever see this particular idiom in an actual GMAT question, so don't worry about it too much!

Hello EducationAisle,
Is the issue - possessive poison : pronoun referring back to possessive - still unacceptable?
If its acceptable then I believe Option D would be correct.
Please let me know whether I am thinking correctly?

Regards,
Tamal

Hi Tamal, I see that Brett posted this back in 2010.

Since then, GMAT does seem to have shown flexibility in this regard. There is at least one correct official example from more recent times (Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning's success was later overshadowed...) where the subject pronoun she only has a possessive noun to refer to.

So, while this usage is acceptable now, it might still be a good idea to keep such options as #2 and revisit such options if no better option is available.

One of the examples of "possessive poison" error given by MGMAT instructor in the above post-

1. "I bought Jose's birthday present yesterday, but I never got an invitation to his party." - Isn't the pronoun 'his' that precedes 'party' a possessive pronoun?
So, even with the possessive pronoun rule, this example is correct since possessive noun Jose's can refer to his

2. While the second example about Steve (Jobs I think) is incorrect as per possessive poison rule.

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyMurray , DmitryFarber , daagh , generis , other experts - please enlighten

I also have same doubt regarding the 1st one.

Can any expert please comment?

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasPrepBrian , @MartyMurray , DmitryFarber , daagh , generis .

Thanks

Hi folks! This has become a moot point, because the GMAT no longer uses the "possessive poison" rule! But yes, my colleague made an error on #1. Even if we were enforcing the rule, "his" is possessive and would not violate the rule. As for #2, the GMAT might say this another way, but we can't eliminate it just because the only available antecedent for "he" is a possessive noun.

if instead of "governor’s team of advisors", "only governor's advisors" was written , then we would use the plural form of verb ?

Hello khera,

We hope this finds you well.

Your reasoning is correct here; the phrase "governor's advisors" needs the plural verb form, as it does not contain a collective noun ("team" in the original sentence); rather, it refers to the plural noun "advisors" directly.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

stclair "has" is correct.

The GMAT loves to disguise the subject with lots of modifiers. We have to cross off all the modifiers in our head to find the subject here, which is the singular "team":

The governor’s team of advisors, including her education and political strategists, has.


A few more examples:

The team is great.

The players are great.

The team of players IS great.

Hey Brett, wouldnt "I bought Jose's birthday present yesterday, but I never got an invitation to his party." be the correct usage of his as it acts as a possessive pronoun (Joe's party) and is not referring to Joe as such.

Thanks