Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding princip

Question

Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.

A. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.

B. Companies, investors, along with governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if it is to defend against future economic crises.

C. Companies, as well as investors and governments, must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend from future economic crises.

D. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if these are to defend from future economic crises.

E. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if future economic crises are to be defended

I know correct idiom is defend against but isnt A wrong they can refer to "guiding principles" or "companies,investors and government"

Jp27 · Accepted Answer

This is weird problem What's the source?

1st the easy eliminations ->

B. Companies, investors, along with governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if  it  is to defend against future economic crises.

it cant refer to Companies, investors and governments - Bye bye B

C. Companies, as well as investors and governments, must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend from future economic crises.

as well as cannot be replace COMMA or AND ; also the correct Idiom is Defend against not defend from - KILL C

D. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if these are to defend from future economic crises.

these cannot be used as a pronoun - "these" are mostly used as an adjective for example these cars, these trees etc

Now between A and E

A. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.
E. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if future economic crises are to be defended.

E changes the meaning of the sentence saying that it's not the Companies, investors, and governments are defending economic crises - it's some1 else who is doing it,as the sentence is written in passive voice. This is not the intent of the sentence and original says Companies, investors, and governments are fighting it.

Now on to A -> A is all OK, you might think "they" is ambiguous but "they" clearly refers to " companies, investors, and governments " For example

Tanya and Zeba will to the party, if they hear back from their dates. Similar construction is followed in A!

Pls do write back if you have any questions!

rajcools · Answer

Found this in manhattan forum
"
as noted a few other times on this forum - most noticeably in the GMATPrep verbal folder, but in a couple places in the other verbal folders - pronoun ambiguity is not an absolute rule. in other words, the test will clearly tolerate a certain degree of pronoun ambiguity.

in general, we've found:
 the gmat will tolerate pronoun ambiguity when both of the following are satisfied:
1. the intended referent makes much more sense than do the other possible referents,
and
2. the intended referent is PARALLEL TO THE PRONOUN, and the other possible referents are NOT parallel to the pronoun.
 
"

daagh · Answer

Let me cite an interesting case. This is a question fro OG 12 
SC Q 10

10. Carnivorous mammals can endure what would
otherwise be lethal levels of body heat because they
have a heat-exchange network which kept the brain
from getting too hot.
(A) which kept
(B) that keeps
(C) which has kept
(D) that has been keeping
(E) having kept

The ununderlined portion has a pronoun they. What does it refer to? Mammals without doubt. Can we say they is referring to lethal levels just because that is also an eligible contender along with mammals?. As per MGMAT, they may be ambiguous. However, GMAT has passed it refrring to mammals

Another example ( it may be from GPREP)

In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, most of them as large as or larger than Jupiter, which circle other stars.
A. most of them as large as or larger than Jupiter, which circle
B. most of them as large or larger than Jupiter and circling
C. most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling
D. mostly at least as large as Jupiter, which circle
E. mostly as large or larger than Jupiter, circling

What does them refer to? Definitely not astronomers but logically only to the planets. The correct answer is C according to GMAT, accepting them as referring to planets, while we can argue that they can also refer to other eligible plural nouns.

daagh · Answer

OK good; The first point says crisply what I have maintained elaborately, I suppose. I haven't seen much of MGMAT, except for a few quotes like from contributors like you. . A kudo to you for all the pains you took to make this point clear for the benefit of other audience

souvik101990 · Answer

Item in a list construction is "A, B and C"
This is violated in B and C. Eliminated. B also has a "it" issue.
D apparently is correct but "they" is a much clearer pronoun for the enitites rather than "these". "these" is a demonstrative pronoun which is mostly used for phrases like "these clubs", "these cars" et al.
E. The defence of future economic crises is not happening magically out of thin air. The companies, investors and the govt must make it happen. E avoids the intention. Hence incorrect. I could post 2 amazing OG 13 Very hard question based on this intent part! 
 A is correct!

daagh · Answer

Thirteen states from all regions of the country announced a plan  to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt  emission limits that would be far stricter than the federal rules.

(A) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt--------  the main clause is in past tense, the sub-clause at the end is in future past; but only the prepositional phrase is in simple future, thus flaunting a discordant shift of tense.

(B) to impose new controls on truck and bus engines' pollution by the joint adoption of --  by the joint adoption is unidiomatic 
 
(C) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines by jointly adopting---  best choice; jointly adopting now properly modifies plans to impose new controls

(D) for imposing new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines, and jointly adopting ----  for imposing is unidiomatic; jointly adopting should modify the new plans, rather than being another independent factor]

(E) for imposing new controls on truck and bus engine pollution in the joint adoption of –  for imposing is unidiomatic; bus engine pollution in the joint adoption is jarring’ it should at least be engines’ pollution

Jp27 · Answer

This is gotta be C because

(A) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines in that they will jointly adopt
 IN that is wrong - In that used for limiting statements; but the sentence is showing how these states are imposing pollution control

(B) to impose new controls on truck and bus engines' pollution by the joint adoption of
 states are not placing control on truck; they are placing controls from both pollution from truck and bus engines

(C) to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines by jointly adopting
 CORRECT

(D) for imposing new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines, and jointly adopting
 For imposing is not OK; to show the intent "to +verb" works well

(E) for imposing new controls on truck and bus engine pollution in the joint adoption of 
 For imposing is not OK; to show the intent "to +verb" works well

cheers

NickHalden · Answer

I am surprised by the correct sentence seen here : https://www.mckinsey.com/insights/corpor ... nst_crises

dentobizz · Answer

The correct idiom is to defend against. So C and D are out. B has subject pronoun error 'it' 
A and E both seem right logically and grammatically but ' They' in A is pronoun for ' Companies +investors +governments' Or just one of them?? E tackles this ambiguity by using passive voice... Future economic crises.. defended (by companies, investors, governments) 
So E is the best.

Posted from my mobile device

mvictor · Answer

would love to see the OE & OA.

I picked E because in A the pronoun "they" is ambiguous.
E sounds better, but this choice doesn't show any correlation between relearning and defending against economic crises.
who is going to defend?

GSguru1 · Answer

Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises.

A. Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to defend against future economic crises. 
 
  CORRECT:   This answer choice conveys the intended meaning in a clear and idiomatically correct fashion. One may argue that pronoun  ‘they’  is ambiguous, but remember that logic is the ultimate factor in pronoun reference issues: of the two eligible plural nouns  companies, investors and governments ’ and (2) ‘ guiding principles ’], only the (1) makes sense, after all how can guiding principles defend against future economic crises? Furthermore,  ‘IF’  is a subordinate conjunction and subject of the subordinate clause can logically refer to the subject of the main clause

B.   Companies, investors, along with governments  must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if  it is  to defend against future economic crises.

Construction/Meaning:  construction  ‘Companies, investors, along with governments’   has two issues:
 1.   Construction:    conjunctions such as  ‘along with/ together with/ in addition to/ etc.’  are normally used to add descriptive/non-essential information and are normally  separated  by commas from the rest of the sentence:  Mike , along with John,  rides a bicycle to school 
 2.   Meaning:   the author intends to put an equal emphasis on   to have to relearn the guiding principles of value creation; whereas, this answer choice attempts to put main emphasis on   and to add   as extra/non-essential information;
Switching conjunction  ‘along with’  to conjunction  ‘and’  would solve both issues
 Pronoun:  Conjunction  ‘and’  in a list of items constitutes a plural quantity; therefore, the subject is the plural compound noun:  ‘companies, investors,   and   governments’ , hence singular pronoun  ‘it’  and the singular verb  ‘is’  do not agree in number with the plural compound noun:  ‘companies, investors,   and   governments’ ;

C.   Companies, as well as investors and governments,  must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if they are to  defend from  future economic crises.

Meaning:  the author intends to put an equal emphasis on   to have to relearn the guiding principles of value creation; whereas, this answer choice attempts to put main emphasis on  , and to add   as extra/non-essential information;
 Unidiomatic:  In the given context, construction  ‘defend from’  is unidiomatic; the idiomatically correct expression would be  ‘defend against’ ;

D.  Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if  these  are to  defend from  future economic crises.

Pronoun:  This answer choice incorrectly uses indicative pronoun  ‘these’  to refer to the plural compound noun:  ‘companies, investors, and governments’ ;
 o It's  always  wrong to use  ‘these’  as a PRONOUN in formal English.
 o Anything in which  ‘these’  is used as a NOUN is incorrect: if you see  ‘these are...’, ‘these show that’ , etc. then, in general, it's wrong;
 o The only acceptable use of  ‘these’  in formal written English is as an ADJECTIVE + the noun: these facts, these rumors, etc.;
 Unidiomatic:  In the given context, construction ‘defend from’ is unidiomatic; the idiomatically correct expression would be  ‘defend against’ ;

E.  Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles of value creation if future  economic crises are to be defended.

Meaning:   passive construction  ‘economic crises are to be defended’  changes the intended meaning of the sentence, nonsensically implying that  ‘the companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding principles in order TO DEFEND ECONOMIC CRISES’ ; obviously, ‘Companies, investors, and governments want to defend THEMSELVES against future economic crises, not the other way around’

sayantanc2k · Answer

If a pronoun that is the subject of a clause has two possible antecedents, one of which is the subject of another clause within the sentence, the pronoun would, by virtue of parallelism, unambiguously refer to the subject antecedent. Therefore "they" clearly refers to "Companies, investors, and governments" (both are subjects of their respective clauses) - such a construction is not considered ambiguous in GMAT.

OA is A - topics merged.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Companies, investors, and governments must relearn the guiding princip

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