a question about they, their, them

[ROCK111]

in the note, it said "they, them, their only refer to the same antecedent"
So, what if a sentence is like this: A....they.... ，and B.....they......
each 'they' refer to A and B respectively, or both should be refer to A?
And the same rule in other sentence?
For example,A....their.... and B.....they...........

[ROCK111]

To be more specific, this example is on Gmat prep,
It is unclear whetherchimpanzees are unique among nonhuman species in their ability to learnbehaviors from one another, or if, when other animals are studied in as muchdepth, similar patterns would be found.

(A) if, when otheranimals are studied in as much depth, similar patterns would be found
(B) if other animalswere studied with as much depth they would exhibit similar patterns
(C) would similarpatterns be found in other animals if they were studied in as much depth
(D) whether similarpatterns would be exhibited in other animals that were studied with as muchdepth
(E) whether otheranimals would exhibit similar patterns if they were studied in as much depth

I think E is wrong b/c the word, 'they', refers to 2 different subject.

[MohitS94]

Parallelism is the alpha and the omega here. Even if there is ambiguity in the "they", it gets overshadowed by the massive weight of parallelism.

[RonPurewal]

in the note, it said "they, them, their only refer to the same antecedent"
So, what if a sentence is like this: A....they.... ，and B.....they......
each 'they' refer to A and B respectively, or both should be refer to A?
And the same rule in other sentence?
For example,A....their.... and B.....they...........

• what is "the note"?

• i don't understand what you are trying to ask. could you please try to phrase your question(s) more clearly?

thanks.

[ROCK111]

in the note, it said "they, them, their only refer to the same antecedent"
So, what if a sentence is like this: A....they.... ，and B.....they......
each 'they' refer to A and B respectively, or both should be refer to A?
And the same rule in other sentence?
For example,A....their.... and B.....they...........

• what is "the note"?



• i don't understand what you are trying to ask. could you please try to phrase your question(s) more clearly?

thanks.

In CH5 of the manhattan gmat of SC, the note says that when you use it, they, or other personal pronouns, you mean the same actual thing as the antecedent.
So I'm thinking does the "they" and "their" should refer to the same thing in the example I posted above?

thanks

[RonPurewal]

the most important response here is to note that you're worrying about something that, on this test, is not actually a thing.

DO NOT EVER think about whether pronouns are "ambiguous". the GMAT does not test that notion.

[RonPurewal]

to actually address the query a bit—
in the example you've provided, the two pronouns are in completely different clauses (= basically separate sentences, with separate subject+verb constructions). in that case, there's definitely no issue with "ambiguity", even if you're actually testing that sort of thing.

in general, it's bad form to use two similar pronouns to refer to different things within the same clause (e.g., I gave the kids some vegetables, but they don't want to eat them).
HOWEVER...
1/ this is a stylistic issue, not an actual error
2/ the GMAT doesn't test this anyway.

again, the most important thing to say here is that you shouldn't be thinking about this "issue" in the first place.

[RonPurewal]

oh, and, this ...

I think E is wrong ...

... yeah, don't do that.

the official answers are not wrong.
ever.
the correct answers are correct. end of story. if you're trying to dispute an official answer, you lose.

instead of writing the above, you should be writing (and thinking),
"what do i currently fail to understand about this correct sentence?"
"how do i need to adjust my own understanding to account for this example?"

otherwise you're just wasting your time.