Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in

Question

Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in terms of intelligence and creativity, but unlike men of science,  their female counterparts have had to work  against the grain of occupational stereotyping to enter a "man's world."

(A) their female counterparts have had to work
(B) their problem is working
(C) one thing they have had to do is work
(D) the handicap women of science have had is to work
(E) women of science have had to work

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi there,

Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in terms of intelligence and creativity, but unlike men of science  their female counterparts have had to work
 against the grain of occupational stereotyping to enter a “man’s world.”

This sentence uses two “their”. The first one appears at the beginning before “male counterparts”. The antecedent for this pronoun is “women scientists”.

The second “their” appears before “female counterparts”. The antecedent for this pronoun is “men of science”. Now use of same pronoun for two different antecedents leads to pronoun ambiguity error in the sentence. The sentence now suggests that the women scientists not only have male counterparts but also have female counterparts.

The construction “their male counterparts” and “their female counterparts” appears to be parallel. However, this faulty parallelism leads to pronoun ambiguity that has been explained above. It is not preferable to use same pronoun for two different entities in one sentence.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

bsd_lover · Answer

Easy E ... men of science || women of science. Another thing to note is "unlike  men of science  <what follows this ?>" <-- the correct answer would be a comparison between men of science and something - the best comparison is women of science.

agold · Answer

I agree E - but shouldn't there be a comma? men of science, women of science ... ?

Yahsek · Answer

Yep, E. Men of science compared to women of science.

billyjeans · Answer

E.

Does original question has a comma at the end of science? Thanks

Paul · Answer

Yes, I fully agree that there should be a comma following "woman of science" in order to connect an introductory modifier with what follows.

but  unlike men of science , women of science  
The portion in red is a prepositional phrase (introduced by preposition "unlike") acting as an introductory modifier and as such, MUST be separated by a comma from the rest of the independent clause which follows.

Thus, I believe there is a typo in the original question.

hanumayamma · Answer

Sentence has parallelism issue

A )their female counterparts have had to work   Not parallel, “men of science”, their – eliminate it ]

B) their problem is working  Not parallel, “men of science”, their – eliminate it ]

C) one thing they have had to do is work  they” has no clear reference, “one thing” is awkward – eliminate it ]

D )the handicap women of science have had is to work  men science, the handicap women is not parallel – eliminate it ]

E )women of science have had to work  Hold it ]

Answer: E

mba4viplav · Answer

I made silly mistake while answering this question.

I just didn't go through the options till option (E).

Step 1: I identified this question as parallelism question.
Step 2: I browsed through the options till option (D) and was searching for "Women of Science" in those options
Step 3: I neglected option (E) and finally ended up choosing option (A) which was the next best among the options.

Silly mistake

l0rrie · Answer

Glad u figured it out, now keep your eyes open for them parallels;)

brandy96 · Answer

easy one. E is the right choice.

amit2k9 · Answer

men of science has been compared with women for science.
E is perfect.

gmatfighter12 · Answer

I picked A here because of the "counterparts" part. I saw E but still picked A. Should have paid more attention to "their". BTW this is a gmat prep question so I add a tag.

hfiratozturk · Answer

What's wrong here with their female counterparts? Why should not 'their' be used here?

anairamitch1804 · Answer

Here, we have a comparison structure: 
Unlike X, Y...

When we have this structure, we need to make sure that our X and Y elements are comparable.

In this sentence, our "X" element is: 
Unlike men of science

We want to compare men to women, not to problems, handicaps, etc. 
Unlike men..., women.... 
is the only correct comparison, so E is the correct answer.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in terms of intelligence and creativity, but unlike men of science,  their female counterparts have had to work  against the grain of occupational stereotyping to enter a "man's world."

A )their female counterparts have had to work
B) their problem is working
C) one thing they have had to do is work
D )the handicap women of science have had is to work
E )women of science have had to work - Correct

Unlike X, Y

Note: X and Y should be logical and structurally parallel.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in

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Like their male counterparts, women scientists are above average in

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