When to use Whose?

[MingBee]

Chicago, where industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city, was plauged by labour troubles like the Pullman Strikes of 1894.

A) where industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city

B) which had industrial growth in the nineteenth century more rapid than that of other American cities

C) which had growth industurally more rapid than any other American city in the ninteenth century

D) whose industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city

E) whose industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than of any other American city

 

Please explain your POE. Thanks in advance!

[Aaragorn]

my answer is A. 'Whose' is a possesive form of who and which. And therefore is generally used with animate antecedents like say a person or a group. But there are also instances where it is used with inanimate antecedents like the way its mentioned in the above example, but such instances are rare and they produce a stilted sentence.

[dbharti]

my answer is A. 'Whose' is a possesive form of who and which. And therefore is generally used with animate antecedents like say a person or a group. But there are also instances where it is used with inanimate antecedents like the way its mentioned in the above example, but such instances are rare and they produce a stilted sentence.

Yes Aarogorn is right...

Just to add a little bit more from Bartleby:

 

whose. You can use whose as a possessive to refer to both animate and inanimate nouns. Thus you can say Crick, whose theories still influence work in laboratories around the world or Crick’s theories, whose influence continues to be felt in laboratories around the world. With inanimate nouns you can also use of which as an alternative, as in Crick’s theories, the influence of which continues to be felt in laboratories around the world. But as this example demonstrates, substituting of which for whose is sometimes cumbersome

 

Edited: Aaragorn is right in terms of his explanation :-) In terms of answer, i concur all: answer should be E.

[geekybiz1]

I would go with E.

Here's my reasoning:

A and D: compares industrial growth with other American cities

B and C: "which" is incorrect

 

I agree that "whose" is more cumbersome - but I beleive that often GMAT options come with more than one issues, so when you are not sure about things like which/ whose, its a good idea to look for other problems..!

 

Though, I equally agree that its imp here to get a clear idea about which/ whose and I agree to dbharti's explanation.

[shud]

Thanks for information guys.

 

But A doesn't seem to have parallel comparison

A says - chicago's industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city. Same problem in C and D.

 

B say - than of other cities instead of any other cities- impossible situation.

Only E seems to be correct.

[800Bob]

Something's wrong here. All choices are wrong. Most other choices have comparison problems.

 

A: says that Chicago's growth was "more rapid than any other American city." Needs to be "more rapid than that of any other American city."

 

B: "had industrial growth... more rapid than that of other American cities." Here "that of" makes no sense. If you're going to start the comparison with "had," you need to finish with a verb, as in "than other American cities had."

 

C: Adverb "industrially" in "had growth industrially more rapid" seems to modify "more rapid" instead of "had growth."

 

D: like A, needs "that of."

 

E: Maybe this is supposed to be the correct answer and it's just mistyped. I see "of" where I want to see "that of."

[chopra]

IMO E

 

A,C & D have comparison problem. Comparison should be between chicago and any other american city and not between industrial growth and any other american city. Following comparison is not correct:

 

industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than any other American city.

 

B is awkward.

 

E correctly compares chicago with other cities by using preposition of.

[amitg_ind]

Something's wrong here. All choices are wrong. Most other choices have comparison problems.

 

A: says that Chicago's growth was "more rapid than any other American city." Needs to be "more rapid than that of any other American city."

 

B: "had industrial growth... more rapid than that of other American cities." Here "that of" makes no sense. If you're going to start the comparison with "had," you need to finish with a verb, as in "than other American cities had."

 

C: Adverb "industrially" in "had growth industrially more rapid" seems to modify "more rapid" instead of "had growth."

 

D: like A, needs "that of."

 

E: Maybe this is supposed to be the correct answer and it's just mistyped. I see "of" where I want to see "that of."

 

Bob, in option B, why didn't 'that of' make any sense? I mean, if remove it then wouldn't the comparision be wrongly comparing 'growth' with 'other american cities'? I am confused.

 

We can eliminate B on the basis of parallelism - 'had...had' but 'that of' in B sounds correct to me. :(

[geekybiz1]

amit,

As per my understanding, Bob says that since we use "had industrial growth", we need "other American cities had" to keep the parallelism in option B.

This is different from E, which is of the form "who industrial growth was..."

[800Bob]

Bob, in option B, why didn't 'that of' make any sense? I mean, if remove it then wouldn't the comparision be wrongly comparing 'growth' with 'other american cities'? I am confused.

 

We can eliminate B on the basis of parallelism - 'had...had' but 'that of' in B sounds correct to me. :(

You can say either:

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities had

or:

whose industrial growth was more rapid than that of other American cities

But B confuses the two. "That of other American cities" needs to be compared with some sort of possessive form, such as "the industrial growth of which" or "whose industrial growth."

 

Maybe an analogous but simpler example will help. You can say either:

The area of Russia is greater than that of India.

or:

Russia has a greater area than India has.

But it's imprecise to say:

Russia has a greater area than that of India.

[MingBee]

Sorry I made a typo on Answer E, 800Bob is right. So Answer E is

E) whose industrial growth in the nineteenth century was more rapid than that of any other American city.

and the OA is E

Thank you guys for your valuable opinions!

[beatit]

Thanks 800bob. Very clearly explained.

 

cbttl

[cinghal1]

Something's wrong here. All choices are wrong. Most other choices have comparison problems.

 

A: says that Chicago's growth was "more rapid than any other American city." Needs to be "more rapid than that of any other American city."

 

B: "had industrial growth... more rapid than that of other American cities." Here "that of" makes no sense. If you're going to start the comparison with "had," you need to finish with a verb, as in "than other American cities had."

 

C: Adverb "industrially" in "had growth industrially more rapid" seems to modify "more rapid" instead of "had growth."

 

D: like A, needs "that of."

 

E: Maybe this is supposed to be the correct answer and it's just mistyped. I see "of" where I want to see "that of."

 

Bob,

 

Can you please clarify on one small thing - how does one decide whether to add/not add extra words to maintain full parallelism. For example, in the explaination above, you rejected a because it does't it "more rapid than that of any other American city." However, by the same logic, are both of the following incorrect because I have often seen them as accepted usage.

 

My bank balance is higher than anyone in my neighbourhood [...has]

I have more money than most people [...do]

 

Please help - i've tried to read up everywhere but couldnt get the answer to this. Thanks!

[edyoon81]

You can say either:

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities had

or:

whose industrial growth was more rapid than that of other American cities

But B confuses the two. "That of other American cities" needs to be compared with some sort of possessive form, such as "the industrial growth of which" or "whose industrial growth."

 

Maybe an analogous but simpler example will help. You can say either:

The area of Russia is greater than that of India.

or:

Russia has a greater area than India has.

But it's imprecise to say:

Russia has a greater area than that of India.

 

Hi 800Bob

 

I have one question on comparision

 

The following quote is what I found from something called Spidey's note

 

Look at the following examples for something (perhaps) new:

Megumi has visited more countries than I have.

We can use have again because have is an auxiliary verb here.

Megumi has more skirts than I do.

Here, has is NOT an auxiliary verb, and in SAE, we cannot use the verb have in the second bit.

 

I was just curious how

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities had

falls under an exception case.

 

I was under the impression from Spidey's note that the comparison should be as following

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities did

Please let me know the correct way to understand comparison. Tks in advance.

[800Bob]

I was just curious how

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities had

falls under an exception case.

 

I was under the impression from Spidey's note that the comparison should be as following

which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities did

 

Please let me know the correct way to understand comparison. Tks in advance.

Well, Spidey is not quite right. With the nonauxiliary "have/has/had", you have a choice. You may replace with "do/does/did", but you are not required to do so. The same is true with other verbs.

 

John eats more meat than Paul eats.

John eats more meat than Paul does.

 

Both are correct. You may replace "eats" with "does", but you are not required to do so. Likewise:

 

...which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities had

...which had industrial growth more rapid than other American cities did

 

Both are correct. You have the option.

 

However, when "have/has/had" is an aulixiary verb, you do not have the same option. You do have a choice to repeat or not repeat the past participle, but you cannot change "have/has/had" to "do/does/did":

 

John has always eaten more meat than Paul has eaten.

John has always eaten more meat than Paul has. (correct)

John has always eaten more meat than Paul does. (incorrect)

[edyoon81]

Hi 800Bob

 

Thanks a lot for this!

[vgs]

I agree with E. Thx Bob