The Glass House mountains in Queensland, Australia, were sighted in 17

GMATNinja TommyWallach EducationAisle IanStewart According to the rule, when a present participial phrase is preceded by a clause it modifies the entire preceding clause and takes as its agent the subject of the preceding clause. So, based on the this rule, when I plug in option C is it conveying "The Glass House mountains named themselves"? Is this another reason for eliminating option C? Please reply!

The Glass House mountains in Queensland, Australia, were sighted in 1770 by the English navigator Captain James Cook, by whom they were named supposedly because its sheer wet rocks glistened like glass.

(A) by whom they were named supposedly because its
the word 'it' is singular and is referring to a plural subject "The Glass house Mountains"

(B) by whom they were named supposedly and their

incase of the pronouns we can replace the pronouns with the actual word they are referring to see whether it is grammatically correct or not
in this case if we follow the process mentioned in the above sentence then it looks like :-
"by whom the glass house mountains(they) were named supposedly and the glass house mountains" supposedly

wrong.

(C) naming them supposedly since their
here the use of comma ing modifier modifies the entire clause which is wrong.
we have to modify only the noun. ( the glass house mountains)

(D) who so named them supposedly because their
correctly portrays the intended meaning of the sentence

(E) who so named it since supposedly their
the word 'it' is singular and is referring to a plural subject "The Glass house Mountains"


So therefor D is the correct option,
please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

The Glass House mountains in Queensland, Australia, were sighted in 1770 by the English navigator Captain James Cook, by whom they were named supposedly because its sheer wet rocks glistened like glass.

(A) by whom they were named supposedly because its
(B) by whom they were named supposedly and their
(C) naming them supposedly since their [meaning problem]
(D) who so named them supposedly because their
(E) who so named it since supposedly their

KarishmaB

Hi Karishma,

Can you please share example of "By whom" usage?

Is it similar to preposition followed by pronoun usage "for which"?
Does it behave like a relative clause?

Thank you

The document was signed by director B.

The do-er of the action is director B. If we need to put this in a relative clause, we can easily use 'who.'

Director B, by whom the document was signed, is travelling.
Director B, who signed the document, is travelling.

I don't see anything wrong in the usage of 'by whom' here but I would think that the use of 'who' is clearer and direct. The use of 'whom' is getting rarer these days.