209. The Senate approved immigration legislation that would grant permanent residency to millions of aliens currently residing here and if employers hired illegal aliens they would be penalized.

(A)            if employers hired illegal aliens they would be penalized

(B)            hiring illegal aliens would be a penalty for employers

(C)            penalize employers who hire illegal aliens

(D)            penalizing employers hiring illegal aliens

(E)            employers to be penalized for hiring illegal aliens

The sentence contains a relative clause (that...) indicating, in its compound predicate, two effects of the immigration legislation: (it) would grant x and (would) penalize y. The auxiliary would may be omitted before penalize, but the main verbs must remain parallel. Only C, the best choice, observes these conditions. A and B produce incoherent, fused sentences in which the two main clauses are not parallel. Furthermore, in A the referent of they is unclear, and in B the statement hiring illegal aliens would be a penalty makes no sense. D violates parallel structure by substituting a present participle (penalizing) for the second main verb. E introduces an incoherent passive infinitive construction that violates sense and parallel structure.

请问A中的they为什么指带不清呢，不是指带employers么？

我不知道我講的對不對，提供給你參考。你的問題中they會指兩個對象：「employers」&「illegal aliens」我最近也是剛開始準備GMAT考試，在台北美加補習。老師針對代名詞有一個例句是很好的說明。

David told Thomas that he had enough teaching experience to be a good teacher.
It is not clear whether "he" refers to  David or Thomas.

希望有幫助。

谢谢，你的意思是说they可以前面的主语和宾语是么？

难道it/they如果做主语的话，不能优先指带前面句子的主语么？

请指教 谢谢

这个问题比较复杂,觉得指代这个东西有点玄,一会ETS又说不清楚,有时候它自己也在用

个人觉得,如果是结构上平行的时候,一般代词作主语可以清晰指代其相对应部分的名词

但是这句并不是这样,特别是后面是被动,指代就有问题了

愚见供参考,欢迎拍大砖

抱歉，因为台湾的文法用语跟大陆有点不同，我担心我会讲错。they会指两个对象：

「employers」主词&「illegal aliens」受词（=宾语），代表语意不清会造成误解，所

以通常句子需要改写。

至于解题上，因为and并需要接形式平衡的句型，所以would + 原形V…..and 原形V….，

原题是用if开头的条件句，接起来不平衡。