jaspreets wrote:
The biggest economic advancement that
US and south Korea have attempted - a free trade
agreement signed in April 2007- hasn't been completed because
it awaits ratification by
its respective lawmakers.
In this sentence the pronoun it refers to the antecedent "agreement" that's logical , however "its respective lawmakers "is incorrect , as per
E-GMAT it should have been "their" instead of "its". I can't understand why this so? The agreement has pronoun "it" that is singular and that has two owners, so if we have to refer to the antecedents " The US and South Korea", then the singular pronoun its should refer back to owners.
Eg : The dog is adopted by two brothers, and Its new owners always take good care of their newly adopted friend.
Its refers to dog and their refers to brothers.
But why as per GMAT this usage is incorrect?
Please explain.
Thank you
Dear
jaspreets,
I'm happy to respond.
My friend, I am not quite sure I understand your problem. In the practice sentence you cite
"
US and South Korea' = plural = antecedent of plural pronoun "
their"
"
agreement" = singular = antecedent of the plural pronoun "
it"
The "
lawmakers" don't belong to the "
agreement" -- they belong to the two countries. The US has lawmakers (the folks in the US Congress, to be specific). South Korea also has lawmakers. Agreements do not have lawmakers; nobody is elected or employed by an agreement. Does all this answer your question about this problem?
In your sample sentence . . .
The dog is adopted by two brothers, and its new owners always take good care of their newly adopted friend. . . there is absolutely no error. Pronoun usage is exactly as it would be on the GMAT.
Incidentally, a second problem in the original uncorrected sentence
...
hasn't been completed because it awaits ratification by its respective lawmakers.
Even if both pronouns were correct in their agreement with antecedents, there's still the BIG ERROR that we can use the SAME PRONOUN in the SAME CLAUSE to refer to TWO DIFFERENT ANTECEDENT. This is a major mistake, wrong 100% of the time on the GMAT.
Here are a couple blogs you may find helpful:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-pronoun-traps/https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-sente ... and-logic/Does all this make sense?
Mike