Hello MGMAT instructors, Need your help on this question in SC guide PRONOUNS Problem Set #4
Q4) The player's helmets need to be repainted so that they will be ready to be used at practice on Sunday.

The answer sheet says that sentence is correct. However as per understanding based on material on Pronoun in MGMAT guides, Player's helmets is progressive noun and only progressive pronoun should be used to refer it. "They" is subject pronoun.Shouldnt the right sentence be "The player's helmets need to be repainted so that the helmets will be ready to be used at practice on Sunday".

This is my first post. I think I should have posted it in "ManhattanGMAT Verbal Guides" section instead of this. Apologies..

no sweat, i moved the topic for you. (you should still be able to 'see' the topic where you originally posted it)

couple of things:
1 - i believe you meant to write possessive, not 'progressive'. (there is something called the progressive, but it applies to verbs, not nouns, and so wouldn't make sense in this context.) i'll make that assumption.
2 - nope, helmets is not a possessive noun. the only noun found in the possessive form is players', and that isn't a problem because there are no pronouns attempting to refer to the players. helmets is in plain ("nominative") form, and so serves just fine as an antecedent. (in particular, the fact that helmets is modified by a possessive doesn't have any effect on its own case!)

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incidentally, this rule (the so-called 'possessive poison' rule) is of very minor importance on the gmat; we know of only one question in which it even appears (#86 in the og verbal supplement), and, even in that question, its use is not necessary to answer the question. still, in the interests of full disclosure, we mention the rule - because they do.