With Britain in political crisis and a new deadline to leave the Europ

Question

With Britain in political crisis and a new deadline to leave the European Union two weeks away,  Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament, which it had already rejected doubled by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

A) Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament, which it had already rejected doubled by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

B) Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament, which it has already rejected twice by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

C) Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan, which it had already rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon.

D) Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan was debated in Parliament while it has already rejected twice by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

E) Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan, which it has already rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon

Source: Private tutor

generis · Accepted Answer

This question has three poor answers and two others that are similar. The most efficient POE, I think, is: • Split #1: a plan is a thing. A plan cannot itself engage in debate. Options A and B incorrectly state that the "plan is debating." Eliminate A and B • Split #2: Nonsensical meaning Option D is so garbled that it is difficult to describe its errors one by one. Option (D) contains two big errors, both of which contribute to that option's nonsensical meaning. Bigger error: we don't know what has been rejected twice already. The verb reject is transitive; it needs a direct object. Plain English: we reject something or someone. Write the clause without an object: They reject. (Huh? WHAT do they reject?) Another error is the use of while . This sequence is confusing: X was debated in Parliament while Parliament has already rejected twice, before the third vote on Friday. Try to follow the time sequence in that shortened version.

"While" makes no sense; it cannot mean "simultaneously." -- While does not properly signal contrast in this construction, either. Eliminate D • Split #3 Verbs: Use present perfect, not past perfect Past perfect. Use past perfect when • two events happened in the past and one happened before the other did (the "past of the past"), AND • there is at least one other event in simple past tense ( OR there is a time marker of that past. See the footnote in my post here. ) Option (C) does not have a second (later) event in simple past tense. Correct: The team won most of its games because its coach had required frequent practices. ("won" = simple past tense. And "had practiced" shows that the team practiced BEFORE they won) Wrong: The team should be commended: the members had showed up for frequent practices. (There is no simple past event.) Eliminate C. By POE, the answer is E. • Check E Option E correctly uses present perfect to bridge a recent event in the past whose effects continue into the present. Despite having been voted down twice, this plan is up for a vote again. The issue is controversial. The effects of two prior rejection votes are still relevant. Present perfect bridges that recent past and the present. The answer is E.

LMP · Answer

Thank you for correcting it

johnson.abel · Answer

Isn't IT an ambiguous pronoun?

ArupRS · Answer

No I don't think so. Other than parliament, it cannot refer to any other noun.
Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Arup

Posted from my mobile device

johnson.abel · Answer

IT grammatically (not logically) , could refer to the plan too.
For instance consider the option, 
Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan; it has already been rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon

generis · Answer

Hi johnson.abel , this basic rule governs pronoun ambiguity: Is there one noun that agrees in number and gender that makes logical sense ? In this case, only Parliament would vote on this measure. As you note, the plan cannot debate!

The plan can BE debated. With respect to the original options, if "the plan" doesn't make logical sense, then the word is not actually a candidate as an antecedent. These singular nouns do not debate or take votes: political crisis, deadline, or plan. The European Union would not be debating Britain's plan. Finally, it's clear that Parliament is doing the debating and the voting. I suppose you could argue that Britain is a candidate for antecedent. Not really. From context, the logical meaning is clear. So the pronoun is okay HERE is an official question in which there is more than one antecedent for the noun, but only one noun makes sense.

johnson.abel · Answer

IT grammatically (not logically) , could refer to the plan too.
For instance consider the option, 
Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan; it has already been rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon

generis · Answer

But part of the rule is that the antecedent must make LOGICAL sense.

A noun is not an antecedent simply because it agrees in number and gender with the pronoun.

A noun must agree in number and gender, AND must make logical sense, AND must be the only noun that makes logical sense.

Please take a look at the official GMAC sentence that I cited. Hope that helps.

generis · Answer

Well, in that case, the antecedent is plan.

Parliament is not going to reject itself.

Part of the rule is that the noun must make logical sense. We make logical sense from context. In the sentence that you gave, Parliament would not vote to reject itself two times.

Parliament would vote to reject or to accept a plan.

Please look at the official example that I gave you.

warrior1991 · Answer

generis

Why is had wrong in option C??

Parliament is debating a plan which the the parliament rejected twice earlier. Since the event has already happened, why use   has   but not   had  ??

johnson.abel · Answer

Yes, I agree that the antecedent must make logical sense. But there will be many scenarios in which logical sense for one will differ from that for another.

Even as mentioned in the official GMAC sentence that you've cited, I believe there could be an ambiguity in a similar but varying scenario.

Reptiles, by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun rather than burning calories to generate it, can survive on ten percent of the nourishment that a mammal of similar size would normally require 
Logically, you definitely can not generate the Sun.

Say, I replaced SUN with campfire (a hypothetical scenario)

Reptiles, by drawing their body heat directly from the campfire rather than burning calories to generate it, can survive on ten percent of the nourishment that a mammal of similar size would normally require.
Again this isn't a normal sentence, but do you get how ambiguity has a role to play here?

ArupRS · Answer

For the grammar part,  generis  has already answered.

The example you are citing is in the passive voice.

The parliament has rejected the plan OR
The plan has been rejected by the parliament

Both the sentence conveys the same meaning but in a different structure. Now depending on the first clause, you can use the second clause.

Moreover, the sentence has 'which' that refers to the plan. In the example cited, you are not using 'which' but using semicolon which can be used for an independent clause.
'Which' refers to the plan and if 'it' refers to the plan, then the sentence becomes like 'the plan the plan has rejected...'. I don't think this sentence makes any sense.
Please stick to the structure and then try to understand logically and grammatically. Otherwise, it will be difficult for you, and we can think of different scenarios only to confuse ourselves.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Arup Sarkar

Pankaj1Agarwal · Answer

Bunuel   MartyTargetTestPrep   daagh   sayantanc2k   GMATNinja

pls guide confused between C, D & E

generis · Answer

EDIT: 
 warrior1991  , past perfect,
often called the "past of the past," has a fairly strict rule: in order to use past perfect,
there must be at least one other event rendered in simple past tense (or a time stamp that marks off the past event*).

It does not make sense to talk about "the past of the PAST" unless the "later" past is clear,
that is, unless the later past is written in simple past tense.

In option C, there is not a second event that is written in simple past tense.
We cannot use past perfect.

In addition, option E correctly uses the present perfect construction that we need 
to bridge the recent past and the present.
An event that continues to affect the present needs to be described by present perfect.

That is, the Parliament's vote to reject was not final. 
Had that vote been final, Parliament would not now be debating the plan (again).

If we describe an event that began in the past whose effects continue, we use present perfect.

Hope that helps.

* Correct:  By the time of his 1973 release, Senator John McCain had been a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years.  
In this sentence, "By 1973" marks a past event later in time (his release) than the time of his imprisonment, so "had been  " is allowed. This construction is very rare in the GMAT. If past perfect is part of the correct answer, that correct answer usually has an event rendered in simple past tense.

Gagan0009 · Answer

As far as I can understand "Had" is used with past perfect which requires another event to define the time line, whereas "Has" is present perfect that could be used to define a past action with its effect intact in present.

generis · Answer

You are correct. 
Past perfect requires the presence of at least one simple past tense verb 
(or a time stamp equivalent, usually a phrase such as "by the end of 2015")—

and originally, I mentally (and incorrectly) inserted the needed simple past event into the sentence in Option (C).

There is no second event rendered in simple past tense in option C, 
an absence that is reason to eliminate C.

I will amend my answers.

Nice catch! +1

generis · Answer

johnson.abel  -- your syntax, sentence construction, and use of vernacular (including the word "get") strongly suggest that English is your first language.

I am hoping that you are  not  asking whether I  understand  that pronoun ambiguity 
might play a role in sentence correction. (With respect to the words I changed into blue typeface: of course there can be pronoun ambiguity.)

I will assume that your question is something along these lines:
 The pronoun IT in the Brexit question seems ambiguous or at the least problematic.
Is the pronoun IT problematic?

Answer: In four of the answers, those "it" pronouns are not problematic enough
to warrant using pronoun ambiguity as the first reason to eliminate.
I usually advise people to use pronoun ambiguity in the final steps of their analysis.

GMAC tolerates a good deal more pronoun ambiguity than people imagine.

• in options A, B, C, and E, the pronoun  it  logically refers to  Parliament .
An inanimate plan cannot actively reject anything.

• Option D? The whole sentence is a hot mess, so if you want to reject it on the basis 
that you really can't tell what "it" refers to, it's fine to do so.
The sentence is dumb.

Even in D, I would argue,  it  still can only refer to  Parliament . A plan cannot reject anything. A plan is an inanimate thing.

Official explanations rarely use pronoun ambiguity  alone  as the reason for eliminating an answer, and the other errors are usually clearer or easier to spot.

I think you describe a scenario in which pronoun ambiguity IS the first, best, and perhaps only reason to eliminate an answer.

Yes, I do "get" what you mean. I'm simply saying that such a situation is rare.

I found an example that I believe is what you are looking for:
in Official Guide Verbal Review 2019, SC #263,  which you can find HERE , 
the author of the OE uses only pronoun ambiguity to eliminate one option,
and uses that same pronoun ambiguity plus other reasons to eliminate two more answers.
(The OE is not posted on that thread, but I suspect that you can figure out which options get eliminated only or partly on the basis of pronoun ambiguity.)

Hope that helps.

Kanika3agg · Answer

With Britain in political crisis and a new deadline to leave the European Union two weeks away,  Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament, which it had already rejected doubled by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

A)  Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament,  which it  had  already rejected doubled by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon. -

B)  Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan is debating in Parliament,  which it has already rejected twice by large margins, before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

C) Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan, which it  had  already rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon.

D)  Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan was debated in Parliament while it has already rejected twice by large margins , before the third vote on Friday afternoon.

E) Parliament is debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan, which it has already rejected twice by large margins, before a third vote on Friday afternoon -  Correct option

Abhishekrao12 · Answer

According to you , It does not make sense to talk about "the past of the PAST" unless the "later" past is clear,
that is, unless the later past is written in simple past tense. 
In option C, there is not a second event that is written in simple past tense.

But according to me , the statement ' before a third vote on friday afternoon' is an event that could have happened in the past. So the usage of had is OK.

Can you please elaborate why i am wrong ?  generis

Before 6PM , Ram had finished his homework.
6PM is an event and ram finishing his homework is an event that happened before the second event. 
Is this sentence correct?

With Britain in political crisis and a new deadline to leave the Europ

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