Although she was considered among her contemporaries to be the better : Magoosh

mikemcgarry wrote:

Nevernevergiveup wrote:Source: OG 16

Although she was considered among her contemporaries to be the better poet than her husband, later Elizabeth Barrett Browning was overshadowed by his success.

A, Although she was considered among her contemporaries to be the better poet than her husband, later Elizabeth Barrett Browning was overshadowed by his success.
B, Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered among her contemporaries as a better poet than her husband, she was later overshadowed by his success.
C, Later overshadowed by the success of her husband, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry had been considered among her contemporaries to be better than that of her husband.
D, Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning's success was later overshadowed by that of her husband, among her contemporaries she was considered the better poet.
E, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry was considered among her contemporaries as better than her husband, but her success was later overshadowed by his.

In terms of meaning and Idiom Consider XY aspects I agree that Choice D is the best option here.
But here "she" pronoun is referring to subject noun in possessive form.
Did Gmat relax its rules regarding possessive pronouns? Please explain

Dear Nevernevergiveup,

I'm happy to respond.

The short answer is, no, the GMAT has not relaxed its rules. You just have to understand the depth of the rule.

Think about it. Think about the "no antecedents in the possessive" rule. Why is that a rule? You should not accept any grammar rule or an math rule as a black/white fact handed down from God. Instead, you always should strive to understand the logic underlying a rule.

We always want a clear antecedent. When an antecedent is given rhetorical weight, for example when it is the subject, this enhanced status makes it a more likely antecedent. By contrast, when a noun is in the possessive, it is serving another noun, so it has significantly less rhetorical weight. Ordinarily, this would be a poor antecedent, hence the literal rule.

This sentence demonstrates an exceptional circumstance. It's fine to have a possessive noun as the antecedent for a possessive pronoun. In this sentence, choice (D), we get THREE appearance of the possessive pronoun: "her contemporaries ... her husband, ... her success" In other words, the grammar of the sentence is hammering the point that Ms. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the topic of the entire sentence: she is the inescapable focus upon whom everything in the sentence depends. Once all that is established, we get to the pronoun "she." Even though the original antecedent was in the possessive, a possible lesser rhetorical status, the repetition of the pronoun elevated EBB to a higher rhetorical level than anything else in the sentence We have absolutely no doubt by this point that she is the sun in the solar system of the sentence: all the information, all the meaning, revolves around her. Therefore, it's perfectly clear that EBB is the antecedent of "she."

You can't be a fundamentalist about grammar rules. Context is everything.

Does all this make sense?
Mike