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John and Jane on a business trip

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by suchoudh » Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:56 pm
Jane, accompanied by John and their three children, are flying to Seoul on a business trip.

1. Jane, accompanied by John and their three children, are
2. Jane, along with by John and their three children, are
3. Jane, together with John and their three children, are
4. Jane, accompanied by John and their three children, is
5. Jane, John and their three children are


Please explain your answers. I will post the OA later.
Last edited by suchoudh on Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:13 pm
Its 4 (D) . Jane is singular and needs the singular verb "is".
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:14 pm
An additional thing that may help you is that an additive phrase does not change a singular noun/subject into a plural noun. Only the conjunction "and" can make a subject plural.
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by suchoudh » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:18 pm
I picked 4 too, but I was wrong.
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:30 pm
I guess its 5 then. The test makers probably consider choice 5 the most concise and least awkward, even though I don't understand why 4 is "awkward".
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by suchoudh » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:53 pm
Yes the answer is 5(E). It can only be redundancy which invalidates 4(D).
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by money9111 » Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:36 pm
I chose 4 as well and was clearly wrong. I don't understand why 5 would be correct. Removing the middle we would get "Jane is flying to Seoul on a business trip." Looks and Sounds correct to me... Can someone please explain?
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by mmslf75 » Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:06 pm
has to be 4

5 cannot be answer here

That's why I always ask for sources. We dont want to skew any1's reasoning by doing such sub-standard quality SCs

anyways coming back to the SC question
for 5th
Jane, John and their three children are

THEIR is at issue, here.
THEIR does not have a clear referrent
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by VikingWarrior » Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:56 pm
I don't see any problem with noun referral with "their" in option E - it obviously refers to the only two nouns mentioned before "their", hence no ambiguity there...
However, I do think in option D their has a referral problem (John and their?) and is illogical if used with the singular "is" since it says their children!...If it were
Jane, accompanied by John and HIS children,IS flying......
this would be correct though obviously it would change the meaning of the sentence, I am only saying grammatically correct.
Answer is unequivocally E
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by soumyopriyosaha » Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:34 am
E is the best choice because it is concise. Also E gives a clear meaning to the sentence by saying that "Jane, John and their children" all are travelling.
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