IMO A

(B) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars were minted as coins in the United States between 1979 and 1981 but - "dollars were minted as coins" sounds awkward. It sounds as if some more dollars were minted, but not as coins. Also a singular subject is required, as the sentence ends with "because it looked...."
(C) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that were minted between 1979 and 1981 in the United States -Sounds as if only the dollars minted between 1979 and 1981 were unpopular. There were some more dollars which might have been popular; singular subject required.
(D) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that the United States minted between 1979 and 1981 -same error as in C
(E) Between 1979 and 1981 the United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars, which -Plural subject "dollars"; singular subject is required, as the sentence ends with "because it looked...."

agreed

the pronoun it refers to a noun coin, which is only available in A

B, C and D are wrong for passive voice..

E is wrong for using 'which'. the modifier should modify the whole sentence not just dollars.

my pick is A.

C and D are incorrect because they change the meaning to say that 857 million coins were unpopular - the rest of the coins were popular...

update: I guess I was just repeating bigoyal's words...

Then A should be incorrect too!

In A, the subject is "the coin" - the coin proved unpopular because it looked.....

Whereas in option E, the subject is "which" referring to "dollars" - ....dollars, which proved unpopular because it looked.....

The United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars between 1979 and 1981, but the coin proved unpopular because "it" looked and felt too much like a quarter.

THE CORRECT ANSWER IS A

The non underlined part tells us that the subject of the sentence is a singular noun.

None of the option has a singular noun except A

A is the correct answer

(A) The United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars between 1979 and 1981, but the coin
Correct:- "coin" is singular and "it" refers correctly back to the "coin"

(B) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars were minted as coins in the United States between 1979 and 1981 but
WRONG:- "it" in the non underlined part refers back to "dollars" (which is plural) :- Subject-Verb Error

(C) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that were minted between 1979 and 1981 in the United States
WRONG:- "it" in the non underlined part refers back to "dollars" (which is plural) :- Subject-Verb Error

(D) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that the United States minted between 1979 and 1981
WRONG:- "it" in the non underlined part refers back to "dollars" (which is plural) :- Subject-Verb Error

(E) Between 1979 and 1981 the United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars, which[/quote]
WRONG:- "it" in the non underlined part refers back to "dollars" (which is plural) :- Subject-Verb Error



_________________

The United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars between 1979 and 1981, but the coin proved unpopular because it looked and felt too much like a quarter.

(A) The United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars between 1979 and 1981, but the coin - Correct
(B) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars were minted as coins in the United States between 1979 and 1981 but - subject-verb agreement -- singular it to refer to dollars
(C) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that were minted between 1979 and 1981 in the United States- subject-verb agreement -- singular it to refer to dollars
(D) About 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars that the United States minted between 1979 and 1981 - subject-verb agreement -- singular it to refer to dollars
(E) Between 1979 and 1981 the United States minted about 857 million silver-colored "Susan B. Anthony" dollars, which- subject-verb agreement -- singular it to refer to dollars

Answer A
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This question is based on Pronoun usage and Construction.

Options B, C, and D have a pronoun reference error. Options B, C and D begin with the phrase “About 857 million silver-colored “Susan B. Anthony” dollars”, which acts as the subject and the antecedent for the pronoun ‘it’ that appears in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. The singular pronoun ‘it’ cannot refer to the plural antecedent ‘dollars’. Option B also contains a clumsy expression – “Susan B. Anthony dollars were minted as coins”. Therefore, Options B, C and D can be ruled out.

In Option E, the relative pronoun ‘which’ converts the last part of the sentence into a subordinate clause. The relative pronoun ‘which’ refers to ‘dollars’ because it is placed directly after the noun. However, the pronoun ‘it’ in the last part of the sentence is incorrect because it cannot refer to ‘dollars’. So, Option E also can be eliminated.

Option A does away with the pronoun reference error by introducing another noun ‘coin’ in the latter half of the sentence. The pronoun ‘it’ can refer to the singular antecedent ‘coin’. Therefore, A is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.
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order of solving sentence correction.
at first, you read choice A. now you can realize structure errors and meaning errors. structure errors are most easy to realize. but realizing meaning errors is what gmat wants. to realize meaning errors, you need to understand meaning of the first choice, and realize the illogical combination in the first choice.

a high level of understanding and reading skills is required to realize meaning error. this is what gmat wants. we need to read a lot and have a solid grammar of english.

but if after you read 2 or 3 choice and realize no errors, you meet minor grammatical errors . this minor errors are about pronouns, agreement, singular/plural and other. now, you have to compare the 2 choice carefully to realize this error. this error is easy to explain but hard to realize at first reading

so, the order is
1. realizing structure and meaning error first
2. realizing minor errors.