In ancient Thailand

[star_321]

In ancient Thailand, much of the local artisans’ creative energy was expended for the
creation of Buddha images and when they constructed and decorated the temples that
enshrined them.
A. much of the local artisans’ creative energy was expended for the creation of
Buddha images and when they constructed and decorated the temples that
enshrined them
B. much of the local artisans’ creative energy was expended on the creation of
Buddha images and on construction and decoration of the temples in which they
were enshrined
C. much of the local artisans’ creative energy was expended on the creation of
Buddha images as well as constructing and decoration of the temples in which
they were enshrined
D. creating images of Buddha accounted for much of the local artisans’ creative
energy, and also constructing and decorating the temples enshrining them
E. the creating of Buddha images accounted for much of the local artisans’ creative
energy as well as construction and decoration of the temples that enshrined them

SPOILER: My question here is regarding the pronoun reference.
Here the Budha Images in hte object of th first part of the sentence. Can a subjective case pronous 'they' refer to a objective case Noun of the preceding clause...If you have any example por favor, el señor share...

[babusim]

whether subjective case or objective, as long as you have unambiguous referent it should be fine. You should use appropriate case. That is the only rule. I mean you can have a sentence that has both cases referring to single noun. He gave me a pen, which I gifted John last year.

[babusim]

btw my choice is B (parallelism)

[gmat_t1]

(B) in my opinion.

[rrakesh]

Hi Babusim,

is the use of as well as in Ans. C is not correct?

[tamdt197]

I choose B too.

[sushkan2008]

whats the Official Answer...I go for B too...

[vinscorpion]

star_321 - It took me a while to see the reason why B is correct, and even though it seems B is not following the rule -> 'they' should refer back to the subject of preceding clause/sentence.

In ancient Thailand, much of the local artisans’ creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images and on construction and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined.

Is 'they' ambiguous? Yes it seems like, but if ambiguity can be removed by some other means, such as pluralism/singular ism then it can be ok.

I see 2 reasons why 'they' canNOT refer to 'artisan'
1. They is plural, so need to refer to plural noun, and if it has to refer back, then it will refer to "local artisans’ creative energy", which is singular (we know for sure by 'was') and wont be correct.
2. Now, as per the rule of "Possessive Poison", the subject or object pronoun cannot refer back to 'possessive nouns'. And the "local artisans’ creative energy" is possessive noun.

So finally we know, for sure, 'they' cannot refer to 'Artisans'

Some examples -

He likes to read books and they are full of information.
He read books and on finish reading he covers them, and they are stored in a box.
John's book has many pictures, and they are very colorful.

Now above, is 'they' ambiguous above? No.

Do you guys agree with my approach to this question?

[babusim]

Hi Babusim,

is the use of as well as in Ans. C is not correct?

'as well as' can be used as 'and' conjunction. But 'as well as' won't make the two nouns plural.
Pen as well as pencil was given
pen and pencil were given

In this case i don't think as 'well as' gets us into any agreement errors. But it needs to be followed by 'on' + 'constructing' should be 'construction'
Apart from that I don't see any issue

[star_321]

Official Answer is B...
Thank you.