I think there's a flaw in this question from the official study guide.

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1

<p>In the first practice test, #19 of section 7 (writing section), there's a question that goes like this:</p>

<p>The scientific writings of Edward O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins, [which] [has continued] the discussion of genetic issues [raised by] Charles Darwin, [are] familiar to many high school and college students. [No error]</p>

<p>Bracketed ones are the choices.</p>

<p>I picked A; I thought it was 'who' instead of 'which'. But they say the answer is B.... but doesn't 'which' always refer to the thing directly before it? I read it as Richard Dawkins was the one who 'has continued the discussion of genetic issues', but apparently the which refers to the 'scientific writings'. Isn't that just flat out wrong? Even if the which can be referred to the 'scientific writings', it's too ambiguous because it makes it seem like it's referring to Richard Dawkins.</p>

<p>Sorry if it's been pointed out before.</p>

2

<p>cb is correct on this one, because the subject is "the writings" not edward wilson, stephen gould and richard dawkins.</p>

3

<p>Yeah... but the 'which' refers to Richard Dawkins.</p>

4

<p>no it does not since the writings continued the discussion, not dawkins</p>

5

<p>Yea the thing is plural, and even if you weren't sure about A you could see that B is outrightly obviously wrong because of the 'has' which should be 'have'</p>

6

<p>ya man! 'which' refers to the writings first of all, and rootbeercaesar is correct. the answer is so obvious; wat difficulty problem was this? easy? that's wat i'd say</p>

7

<p>"which" refers to the scientific writings. the flaw is in the "has" part. i did not find it ambiguous.</p>

8

<p>Yes they are correct - 'writings' is plural and 'has' refers to writings but is singular which is obviously incorrect so 'have' is the correct answer.</p>

9

<p>i thought about this question like this:</p>

<p>the scientific writing (subject) of Edward O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins (adjective clause becuase it is describing the the scientific writing.) have...blah blah blah</p>

<p>to argue againest the point of the OP...why is it the point of richard dawkins...why couldn't it have been edward o wilson who continued the disscussion or Jay gould...</p>

10

<p>Well, according to my English teacher, the 'which' always refers to the object right before it, so it'd be Richard.</p>

<p>like...</p>

<p>The man punched the box, which was brown. <--- refers to the box</p>

<p>And I have no problem with the plural and all that, I'm talking solely about what the which refers to. Because if it refers to Richard, you can change A to 'who' and the sentence structure would supposedly make sense.</p>

11

<p>no... which does not necessarily refer to the thing preceding it... it is a relative pronoun that can have any antecedent.</p>

12

<p>if that's exactly what your teacher said, he's incorrect. what he might have meant is that "which" refers to the noun phrase before it, which in this case is "the scientific writings . . . [et cetera]". the names of the scientists are objects of the preposition "of," not the antecedent(s) of "which."</p>