Pronoun reference : GMAT Verbal Guide

[Khalid]

(edited)

you can't post official guide problems here anymore. that rule has been in effect for a year already; respect the forum rules, please.

the problem referenced is #19 from the purple verbal supplement. if you have it, take a look. DO NOT post the question here.

-- ron

[kylo]

yup!!! i agree that "it" (singular pronoun) cannot represent "property values" (plural).



Thanks!

[Guest]

I guess it is about depressed property values which is plural

[RonPurewal]

I didn't think "A" would be right. The pronoun they could refer to investors or property values. With that in mind I chose E- and of course was wrong.
The explanation says, they clearly refers to property values. For my choice E : it doesn not agree with property values; can potentially is redundent.

Can someone please explian the madness. Thanks !

yeah, but all the grammatically viable choices have the same problem. the only choice that doesn't have this problem is (e), which is simply wrong.
remember, ambiguity is a CLARITY issue. that's the second tier of the three "c"s, below CORRECTNESS. if you're choosing on clarity before correctness, then your priorities are inverted, and you'll miss problems (such as this one) as a direct result of that inversion.

i posted a long discussion of this concept here. note that, per step (2) of the hierarchy, "{depressed property) values" is parallel to "they".