This question is from GMATPREP. I choose "E" but the answer is not that. Also what is wrong in incorrect options.

The proliferation of so-called cybersquatters, people who register the Interner domain names of high-profile companies in hopes of reselling the rights to those names for a profit, led to passing the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in 1999,allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling them later.

(A) passing the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in 1999, allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

(B) the passage of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in 1999, which allows companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent that they will sell

(C) the passage in 1999 of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which allows companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

(D) the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act,which was passed in 1999, and it allows companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent to sell

(E) the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act,passed in 1999 and allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

choice a: 'passing' is a dangling modifier. in other words, we don't know the agent of this action (we don't know who passed the act). that's unacceptable; if no agent is specified, we need a noun form like 'the passage'.

choice b: the relative pronoun 'which' apparently refers to the year 1999. 'the sole intent that they will sell' is incorrect idiomatic usage.

choice c (= correct answer):
- the phrase 'in 1999' is moved out of the way, allowing the relative pronoun which to be correctly placed next to the ACCPA.
- the proper noun form 'the passage' is used, correctly indicating the specific event referenced.
- the correct idiom is used ('with the sole intent of selling').

choice d: the event referenced is the passage of the act, as conveyed in the original (you can't change this meaning: for all we know, the act was written years earlier, but not passed until all the squatters came around). poor parallelism ('and it allows' is out of place). 'intent to sell' is dubious idiomatic usage.

choice e: as in d, you have to say that the presence of squatters led to the passage of the act, not to the act itself (you can't change the meaning of the sentence unless it's nonsense). also, putting 'passed in 1999 and allowing companies to...', while not exactly nonparallel, is just plain weird: you're putting one past event and one current condition in parallel. you shouldn't use parallelism for events that aren't logically parallel.

Am I correct in assuming following errors in choices "D" and "E"

choices "D" which rewritten as follows :-

The proliferation led to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in 1999, and it allows companies to seek up to $100000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent to sell

Pronoun "it" has no clear reference. as this can ambiguosly refer to either "The proliferation or "The Consumer Protection Act".

choices "E" which is rewritten as follows :-

The proliferation led to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, passed in 1999 and allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

Participle "passed..." can modify either to "The proliferation or "The Consumer Protection Act".

The above errors are besides semantic error that was pointed earlier.

In fact, the structure of D makes it seem that "it" should refer to proliferation: the proliferation of... led to X and it allows Y - the most common structure dictates that the subject applies to both items, and the subject in this case is proliferation. So, yes, I agree with you there.

I don't agree on point E, however. Now, we've got The proliferation of... led to X, (two noun modifiers) - those noun modifiers need to refer to the most recent primary noun, the Act. Notice that "it allows..." in D is not a modifier; instead, it is a separate independent clause connected by the conjunction "and."

Hi Stacey,

Do you mean that "it" in D is not ambiguous even D contains two 'potential' referents for "it"?

stacey agrees with you that "it" is ambiguous in the given context. in fact, she's going a level above simply agreeing with you: she's pointing out that not only is the pronoun ambiguous, but, moreover, the referent to which our logical brains are naturally drawn first is the WRONG one.

so she's basically saying the following:
(1) yes, the pronoun is ambiguous (this is enough to stop right here, btw)
(2) worse yet, the noun that's grammatically parallel to that pronoun - which would be the "default" antecedent in problems where ALL the pronouns are ambiguous (yes, this happens) - is the wrong one.
all colors and sizes of wrong.

Hi,

In fact, I am confused when I try to locate the antecedent of the pronoun (as a subject of the second clause in a "..., and ..." sentence), should the default antecedent be the subject of the subject in the preceding clause instead of the object, which is "closer"?

For example,
The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act is caused by the proliferation of so-called cybersquatters, and it allows companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent to sell them later.

(I know that it sounds awkward)

Can it unambiguously refer to The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act because we can assume that "and" forms a parallel structure?

Thanks in advance.[/b]

typo in my first question, rewrite:

In fact, I am confused when I try to locate the antecedent of the pronoun (as a subject of the second clause in a "..., and ..." sentence), should the default antecedent be the subject of the preceding clause instead of the object, which is "closer"?

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. Better to simply not have the ambiguity by not having multiple possible antecedents, or by not using a pronoun. So in your example, the sentence would be better if you substituted "the act" for "it". But a heuristic would be that if you had parallel structures, then the pronoun would replace the noun in the corresponding location.

and allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

Is it true that above part in E is wrong because and is coordinating conjuction, so should be followed by independent clause?

Nope, as above said this is adj modifier=> Only wierd but still correct

(E) the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, passed in 1999 and allowing companies to seek up to $10,000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent of selling

both "passed" and "allowing" can be used as adj modifier to provide more detail about the act. It do well in order to provide logical modifying. However, the best for gmat is parallelism in the voice such as active& Active / passive& passive. This is not the case for this chioce (passive& active), but it's still correct at least. Possibly, careless person could read as if The proliferation,..., led X and allowing Y and rules out this choice for this point.

if the gmat people are consistent, it's actually not wrong at all. there is an o.g. problem (#19, i believe) with this exact construction, involving one past participle (spawned) and one present participle (extending).
as a native speaker of english and a writer, i find that construction fatally awkward while i don't see the same degree of awkwardness in og#19, but there's no tangible way to explain that.

instead, i would eliminate this choice based on the way in which it changes the meaning of the original sentence: the original states that the proliferation of cybersquatters led to the passage of the law, whereas this choice says that it led to the law itself. those aren't the same.