MGMAT Study Hall #2 (November 12, 2009)/Thursdays with Ron

[AsadA969]

Original Sentence:
James met with Stephanie to discuss her homework.
In this sentence, "her"=Stephanie's.

If I say say:
James (male) met with Stephanie (female) to discuss his homework.
In this sentence, "his"=James's.
Is it ok?

Again,
James (male) met with John (male) to discuss his homework.
If it is ok then what "his" refers to? James's or John's?
Could you please give me an explanation?
Thanks.

[tim]

When the genders are different, it is 100% clear what the pronoun refers to in your examples. In your final example, there is no way to tell what the pronoun refers to, so it is ambiguous. Fortunately this is something the GMAT doesn't appear to test anymore.

[AsadA969]

Thanks Tim. But the answer is not clear to me.

[RonPurewal]

What Tim is saying, in simpler terms, is:

"- "His" can't refer to a girl/woman; it can only refer to a boy/man.
In the first two sentences, there is only one boy/man (James), so there is no issue of ambiguity.

"- The third example is genuinely ambiguous, because it could be either James's homework or John's. It's impossible to tell.

"- MOST IMPORTANTLY
Pronoun ambiguity is NOT tested on this exam. So this is pretty much a non-issue altogether. There's no reason even to think about it.

[AsadA969]

Thanks Tim and Ron.

[RonPurewal]

Sure.