Question from Foundations of Verbal online drill

[gmatwork]

British historians have sometimes cited financial concerns as the primary cause of the American Revolution, but in doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due.

a) doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due
b) doing it, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due
c) doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment have not been given their due
d) doing so, they do not give the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment their due
e) doing so, they do not give the due of their ideals to the French Enlightenment of the 18th century

OA - D

This is a question from GMAT Foundations of Verbal SC online drill

I did not understand the explanation given in the drills. Can you please explain how to get ans choice d?

What are they testing us on here?

[jnelson0612]

British historians have sometimes cited financial concerns as the primary cause of the American Revolution, but in doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due.

a) doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due
b) doing it, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment are not given their due
c) doing so, the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment have not been given their due
d) doing so, they do not give the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment their due
e) doing so, they do not give the due of their ideals to the French Enlightenment of the 18th century

Sure! Here would be my process:
1) I see a 4/1 split on "doing it" vs. "doing so". What is it supposed to be referring to? "Doing so" is the preferred idiom. Cross off B.
2) There is a nice split on "the ideals" vs. "they". Look at the the phrase "but in doing so,". Who is that describing? The historians, so either the word "historians" or "they" (pronoun referring to historians) must follow that phrase. Cross off A and C.
3) Compare D and E. Which one is worded correctly? Let's compare:
D) they do not give the ideals ("of . . ." prep phrase) their due
E) they do not give the due ("of . . ." starts off three prepositional phrases)

D must be correct. "They do not give the ideals their due" vs. "they do not give the due". E doesn't even make sense, and it's especially clear when we strip out the prepositions.

[smohit04]

Though I understood the rest of the explanation for this question but have one doubt in the correct answer -

d) doing so, they do not give the ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment their due

Here I feel there is an ambiguity in the usage of second pronoun 'their', which may refer to british historians or ideals of the 18th century French Enlightenment. Could you please explain how we understand that 'their' is not referring to British historians?

[tim]

do you really think "their" refers to "British historians"? it should be 100% obvious from the context that this is not true. please understand that pronoun ambiguity is not as big a deal as many people think. as long as the sentence makes sense, you're probably safe on the ambiguity front..

[MohamedM501]

do you really think "their" refers to "British historians"? it should be 100% obvious from the context that this is not true. please understand that pronoun ambiguity is not as big a deal as many people think. as long as the sentence makes sense, you're probably safe on the ambiguity front..

Dear Ron,

While I was studying, I bumped into this question. Although I know 'their' refers to 'ideals', 'they' refers to 'British historians'. So we have one pronoun refers to a noun and possessive noun refers to different noun which is not allowed in one sentence in GMAT as far as I know.

Can you help please?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

It's fine to have more than one pronoun and more than one noun in the same sentence, as long as the meaning is clear. Where did you hear the rule you stated?