The professor refused to allow us more time to finish our

Question

The professor refused to allow us more time to finish our research project, stating that he had instructions to  deny him continuing  past the deadline.

(A)deny him continuing
(B)forbid him continuing
(C)deny her continuing
(D)deny us continuing
(E)deny our continuing

OA to follow .

vishnuns39620 · Accepted Answer

I chose E. I think the way to tackle some of these is to ask a few quick questions and see which ones make sense.

professor wanted to deny what? Not the group (us) but their action (continuing). Option E gives that correct form by saying " deny our continuing" .

can think of small examples to get the idea - 
" He does not hate me. He hates my talking"

"We like their singing"

TirthankarP · Answer

I think its D.

We can straightway eliminate A, B and C because of pronoun ambiguity.
In E, instead of "deny our continuing" it should be "deny our continuation"

ankurgupta03 · Answer

Should be D,  ABC removed as there is not clear antecedent for him,
In D and E, us should be the right one in my opnion.

ConnectTheDots · Answer

him has clear antecedent "the professor", as "he" in non -underlined part "stating that he had" is to be considered correct.

The action is done by us - " to finish our research project", we have to continue, not the professor. Hence D is correct. 
E incorrectly uses possessive "our".

guerrero25 · Answer

OA is E .

Here's the OE -

Error in pronoun case. A noun or pronoun preceding a gerund should be in the possessive case. The correct answer should give either him\her\us to do or his\her\our doing. Therefore, Choice (E) is the correct answer.

The correct answer is E

EducationAisle · Answer

This is really strange. Would be very curious to know the source of this question. Few things that are suspicious about this question:

a) GMAT questions are  never  in first person ( us/our  in this sentence)

b) Changing  him  in the original sentence to  our  in E is not the kind of  pronoun error  that is tested on GMAT.

c)  Professor  can actually be  him  or  her . GMAT is generally very conscious of this and it is very unlikely that it would use a  him  (even in incorrect option; it is more likely to present  they  in the incorrect choice).

d) As per  OE :  A noun or pronoun preceding a gerund should be in the possessive case . This is the  most suspicious ; in fact, GMAT seems to hold a viewpoint exactly the opposite. Case in point is #24, OG-12, where the sentence is:  .... organism’s trying  to metabolize... . The OE says:

The -ing form of a verb can be used as a noun (e.g., running is her favorite sport), but  it is often awkward, particularly when used with a possessive  .

So,  our continuing  used in E should definitely find itself out of favor.

What's the source of this question?

GMATT75 · Answer

Deny+Possessive Adj/ Noun+ (Verb+ing)

uzumakinaruto444 · Answer

Hi experts,

Request you to please help me understand why D is wrong. I managed to narrow down between D and E but ended up choosing D. Please help.

Thanks in advance!

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  applebear . I would not let this question weigh too heavily on your mind, for reasons outlined by  EducationAisle  above. Still, I was reminded of  a post  I wrote fairly recently on the very matter that separates (D) from (E). In that post, I discuss how some grammarians take the stance that a possessive pronoun, rather than an object pronoun, should precede a gerund. It seems that the creator of this question wrote it with that concept in mind. To illustrate:

(D) deny us continuing
  +   +

(E) deny our continuing
  +   +

Although the professor is referred to by  he  in the embedded clause at the end of the sentence, the sex of the professor would not even enter the picture between (A) and (C), grammatically speaking, since the possessive pronoun in (A) would be  his , but both the possessive and object pronouns in (C) would be  her . In short, if we are to adhere to the preference for the possessive pronoun, we can only consider (C) and (E)—and is there really a clearcut difference between  deny  and  forbid  in (A) and (B) anyway?—and since the sex of the professor is identified as male, we can eliminate (C).

I reiterate that I would not worry too much about this one. Focus on official questions instead.

- Andrew

uzumakinaruto444 · Answer

Thanks a lot,  AndrewN ! Made things much clearer.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The professor refused to allow us more time to finish our

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The professor refused to allow us more time to finish our

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