GMAT prep question (hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey)

[jaskalra]

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology through her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and through her painstaking documentation of East African cave paintings.
A. Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology through her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and through her painstaking documentation of
B. Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting
C. Mary Leakey was a contributor to archaeology by discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of
D. Mary Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting
E. Mary Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of

OA is A.
why A?

This question has been discussed previously on this site. Howevere there is still one question unanswered. Since the first part of the sentence uses "her work " the subsequent referrence should also be possessive noun and hence Mary Leakey's should be the right usage and not Mary Leakey. i followed this line of thought and obviously got the answer wrong since i eliminated a, b and c.

are there any exceptions to this rule ?

[RonPurewal]

This question has been discussed previously on this site. Howevere there is still one question unanswered. Since the first part of the sentence uses "her work " the subsequent referrence should also be possessive noun and hence Mary Leakey's should be the right usage and not Mary Leakey.

nope.

you're trying to use the dreaded "possessive poison" rule reciprocally; that won't fly.
this "rule" states that a non-possessive pronoun can't refer to a possessive noun.
this does NOT work the other way around; it's perfectly fine, even in gmat-world, for a possessive pronoun to have as its antecedent a non-possessive noun.

in any case, i would suggest that you place a very, very low priority on the "possessive poison" rule, because to date it has NEVER been the decisive factor in an official problem. in other words, don't even think about it, unless there's quite literally NOTHING ELSE in the problem that you can grab a hold of.

if you have the new edition of the strategy guide, you'll note that we've excised the discussion of "possessive poison" completely, mostly because it has caused far more headaches (like this one) than helpful results for our students.

[eggpain24]

excellent explanation!

[jlucero]

Glad it helped!