While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they

And here's a video explanation. Enjoy!

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Idioms

• “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.
• A pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly refers to the plural noun “values” with the plural pronoun “they”. Moreover, Option A correctly uses the pronoun “they” to refer to only one noun - “values” - in this sentence. Further, Option A avoids the idiom error seen in Options B and D, as it does not use “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the pronoun “they” and its possessive form “their” to refer to both “depressed property values” and “homeowners”; please remember, a pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence. Further, Option B incorrectly uses “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners; please remember, “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the pronoun “they” and its possessive form “their” to refer to both “depressed property values” and “homeowners”; please remember, a pronoun can only be used to refer to one noun in a sentence.

D: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun “it” to refer to the plural noun “values”. Further, Option D incorrectly uses “in that” to refer to the cause-effect relationship between the equity of homeowners plunging or even disappearing and depressed property values potentially devastating homeowners; please remember, “in that” is used to reflect an intrinsic property and “because” is used to indicate a cause-effect relationship.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun “it” to refer to the plural noun “values”.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Because" vs "In That" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~x minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

There is certainly a meaning difference between "can" and "are." Consider the difference between "Some birds can talk" (i.e. it is possible) and "some birds are talking" (i.e. right now). I think that difference is of minimal importance in this GMAT question because "potentially" in all choices conveys the "it is possible" meaning.


Pronouns don't follow a strict proximity rule (i.e. the antecedent isn't automatically the closest noun, or even the closest preceding noun).

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners...

Here, "values" and "they" are used the same way: as subjects of the verbs "can hurt" and "are...devastating." Note that these verbs are parallel, both in tense (present) and meaning.

In contrast, "large investors" are the object of the verb, more similar to "(for) homeowners" than to "they." So, the GMAT would not consider this pronoun confusing.

It has to be A

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity —in many cases representing a life's savings—can plunge or even disappear.

(A) they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
(B) they can potentiallydevastate homeowners in that their - According to MGMAT: Repeated pronouns are presumed to have the same antecedent. In this case, the antecedent for "their" is homeowners, while for "they" it is "property values". For that reason there is an ambuguity. Also, "can potentially" in this case have the same meaning and for that reason "potentially" is redundant
(C) for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their - the same issues as in B
(D) for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their - should be "they"
(E) it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose - should be they, not it. Also potentially is redundant here.

Hope that helped

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear.

A. they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
B. they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
C. for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
D. for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
E. it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose


Again SV agreement is tested here, also pronouns. Also look out for redundancy in answer choices.

in A we need to make sure that the pronoun ''they'' is used correctly as we have tow plurals in the sentence before pronoun reference ''property values'' and ''large investors''

they cannot refer to large investors coz it cannot modify the noun just preceeding it. TOO CLOSE to be be an antecedent we say it.
While in C ''they'' can refer either to large investors or to property values because now it's seperated from large investors and not TOO CLOSE.

So C is OUT.
B has redundancy and also SV.. what does ''their'' reffering to?? OUT
D & E have SV agreement.. use of IT.


Best Regards,
Mansoor

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Just because a pronoun is sitting pretty next to a noun, we shouldn’t conclude that the pronoun per se might also refer to the proximity noun. But, as matter of rule, the subject of the sentence has the first right of reference to the pronoun rather than the near noun. If the subject of the clause is unable to be referred by the pronoun, then we have to look forward to other choices.

Second thing about pronouns is that pronouns such as ‘they and their’ should refer to the same noun in a clause.

Viewed in that light:

In A, ‘they’ does refer to the values, the subject of the main clause. It cannot refer to the large investors because you don’t expect the large investors to potentially harm the home owners. In addition the possessive pronoun ‘‘whose’ correctly modifies the homeowners. A also avoids the redundancy of ‘can potentially’ found in some other choice.

Even before going into the logic of pronoun reference, we can dispense with B and E for using the redundant phrase ‘can potentially’. Nevertheless, for the sake of understanding, we can see that B is also incorrect, because while the pronoun ‘they’ refers to the values, 'their' refers to homeowners. This is unacceptable

C also has the same problem as B, since 'their' cannot logically refer to the values since values have no equity, only homeowners hold equity.

D: D flaunts a pronoun ‘it’ to refer to the plural values.

E: same problem as in D.

'E' & 'D' are out, 'it' can't refer to plural 'depressed property values'.

'C' is out since there is no clear antecedent for 'their'.

in 'B', 'in that their' appears awkward & also same problem as in 'C' for 'their'.


'A' it should be. (also, 'whose' clearly refers to homeowners)

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity —in many cases representing a life's savings—can plunge or even disappear.


(A) they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose
(B) they can potentially devastate homeowners in that their
(C) for homeowners they are potentially devastating, because their
(D) for homeowners, it is potentially devastating in that their
(E) it can potentially devastate homeowners, whose

They can refer to "depressed property values" or "investors". Why is A not wrong then?

It (a singular pronoun) cannot refer to depressed property values (a plural noun), the intended referent of it.

Hence, it is, what can be called as orphan pronoun. Such pronouns are always incorrect.

Please note the difference between an orphan pronoun (pronoun with no antecedents) and ambiguous pronoun (pronoun with multiple antecedents).

Orphan pronoun is always incorrect, while ambiguous pronoun is acceptable.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses pronoun usage, their application and examples in significant detail. If you can PM you email, I can send you the corresponding section.

Good question! Though I'm not sure that you'll like my answer much.

In most cases, you're right: it seems like a bad idea to use a repeated pronoun to refer to two different antecedents, especially if the repeated pronouns are very close to each other. And in this particular sentence, I think you're right that the pronouns are ambiguous -- and there's obviously a better version in another answer choice.

The trouble is, I think it's dangerous to consider this an absolute rule. Imagine, for example, a long, wordy sentence like this one:

Wilbur ate four dozen burritos on Saturday, mostly because they were relatively small and filled with his favorite ingredient, roasted caterpillars; because they are high and protein and low in fat, caterpillars are considered a delicacy in many parts of the world.

(That might be the most ridiculous sentence I've written this week, though there are a couple of species of caterpillar that truly are tasty...)

Anyway, I'd argue that "they" is perfectly clear in both cases, even though "they" refers to two different antecedents. Technically, there might arguably be some ambiguity here, but it doesn't get in the way of the meaning or clarity of the sentence, and I don't think the GMAT would have a problem with the sentence (other than the content, maybe).

More broadly: pronoun ambiguity isn't an absolute rule, anyway. So you're right to be SUSPICIOUS of repeated pronouns, because they easily could cause ambiguity. But be a little bit careful not to turn it into a rigid rule, because it seems entirely possible that repeated pronouns could correctly refer to different antecedents, depending on the context. And I suspect that if we look hard enough, we'll find a few correct answers on official GMAT questions with "they" (or "it") referring to two different antecedents.

I hope this helps!

I wouldn't waste much energy worrying about how to label the issues you see, so long as you see why they're a problem. But for what it's worth, here are two the scenarios you might be confusing:

1) Curry passed the ball to Green, and then he missed his 19th consecutive shot of the game.

Here, the pronoun "he" could have more than one referent, "Curry," or "Green." That's not necessarily a definite error, but it's a little bit confusing.

2) Curry passed the ball to Green and then it ricocheted out of bounds, hitting the bottom of the backboard, its vibrations felt in the stands for a good 30 seconds.

Here, the first pronoun ("it") seems to refer to the "ball" and the second one ("its") seems to refer to the "backboard." Again, not a concrete error, but not crystal clear either.

To summarize: in the first example, we have multiple antecedents for one pronoun. In the second example, we have multiple pronouns referring to different antecedents. (B) and (C) are more like the second case above. "They" seems to refer to one thing and "their" seems to refer to another.

Is it important to differentiate between those scenarios? Not at all. All you need to do is ask yourself two questions:

1) Is this clear and logical?
2) Is there a better alternative?

Because the "their" in (B) and (C) isn't clear -- is it referring to the "property values", or a new antecedent, "the investors"? -- those options aren't as good as (A), in which "whose" unambiguously refers to "investors." I wouldn't necessarily argue that the pronouns are 100% wrong in (B) and (C), but they're unclear, and we have a much better alternative in (A).

I hope that clears things up!

You are correct that the OA is A. This question is a really good example of shifting pronoun antecedents. Pronoun ambiguity isn't a big issue with the GMAT anymore, but shifting a pronoun's antecedent is incorrect...

KW

Hi Stormcool,

We generally don't insist on an exact match even with conjunctions like and, but, and or.

They can try it, but they won't succeed.
does not need to be
They can try it, but they can't succeed.

What that means for us in this question is that parallelism is not a problem in either option. We take B out because:
1. In that is not a good fit. (a) It is generally not preferred, and (b) it is a little too specific, because it leads to this meaning: "they can potentially devastate homeowners in the sense that their equity can plunge". The intended meaning is almost certainly more general than that.

2. The their at the end of B is ambiguous: "depressed property values can potentially devastate homeowners in that depressed property values' equity..."

Thank you for the quick response.

However, a clarification between A and B is the usage of word "can" vs "are" - any thoughts related to this or this doesn't matter really?

While depressed property values can hurt some large investors, they are potentially devastating for homeowners, whose equity - in many cases representing a life's savings - can plunge or even disappear

Ans opt a)

Doubt: How can the verb tense be present continuos

Analysis:
"Are potentially devastating" is incorrect as the devastation to homeowners is not an ongoing action .The whole sentence talks about a future possiblity using the word can.
and this also maintains verb tense parallelism.

I feel the corrected part of the sentence should be " they can devastate homeowners"

Is my understanding right?

It's not present continuous--"devastating" in this case is an adjective. The depressed property values have the potential to be devastating for homeowners. One way to tell that we aren't dealing with a verb is the use of "for." You don't devastate for someone. Does that make sense?

To express a STATE-OF-BEING, we typically use forms of to be:
John IS happy.
Mary WAS happy.
The children HAVE BEEN happy.
This type of verb is known as a linking verb.

Generally, in that serves to modify a preceding linking verb, specifying the way in which the preceding STATE-OF-BEING is true.
Teratomas ARE unusual in that they are composed of tissues such as tooth and bone.
Here, the modifier in green serves to specify the way in which teratomas ARE unusual.

B: they can potentially devastate homeowners in that
Here, in that seems to modify devastate, which is not a linking verb.
For this reason, I would be skeptical of B.