Among the emotions on display in the negotiating room were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.
(A) were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(B) was anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(C) were anger over repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin healing
(D) was anger about the issue, which was raised over and over, and preventing the wounds from earlier battles, still raw, to begin healing
(E) were anger about the issue, which was raised repeatedly, and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin to heal
what should i consider before choosing was or were - emotions (so plural) or anger (so singular)
Plural vs Singular
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The sentence mentions emotions on display, one of which is anger. The sentence construct is anger over A and B, where A - repeatedly raising the issue and B is preventing healing. In other words, preventing wounds from healing is not an emotion on display.simplyjat wrote:"And" always result in plural....
because "anger for repeatedly raising the issue over" & "over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal" are joined by AND you should user WERE
So, since only one emotion, anger, is mentioned should I choose "was"?
or
Because the sentene starts with 'Among the emotions...', we must use "were"
BTW, the OA is B (But I have seen instances where the OA in 1000SC has been wrong)
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"Anger" is the subject, so "was" is the correct verb.
"Among" constructs could demand singular or plural verbs, depending on what follows among.
For example:
Among the people in the room, Bob was the most prepared.
or
Among the people in the room, Darlene and Mark were the least prepared.
As you can see in both examples, "people" is plural, but has no impact on the verb form.
(Simplyjat: "and" in the sentence joins the two reasons why anger was such a strong emotion - it doesn't join two emotions, which would create a compound noun)
"Among" constructs could demand singular or plural verbs, depending on what follows among.
For example:
Among the people in the room, Bob was the most prepared.
or
Among the people in the room, Darlene and Mark were the least prepared.
As you can see in both examples, "people" is plural, but has no impact on the verb form.
(Simplyjat: "and" in the sentence joins the two reasons why anger was such a strong emotion - it doesn't join two emotions, which would create a compound noun)
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Stuart, I got the point, but I am wondering about the parallelism in the sentence. Are the two reasons for anger specified parallelly correct ?
simplyjat
I would choose B.
Anger is the subject and it is singular. So, I would eliminate A, C and E.
Between B and D, I would choose B. D just does not sound right. It sounds like it makes both "anger" and "preventing" subjects without changing the verb to plural.
Anger is the subject and it is singular. So, I would eliminate A, C and E.
Between B and D, I would choose B. D just does not sound right. It sounds like it makes both "anger" and "preventing" subjects without changing the verb to plural.
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If anger is the subject of the sentence, it can be rewritten in blow sentence with the normal sequence that a verb followes a subject. Do you agree with it?OG wrote:...
Anger is the subject and it is singular. ...
Anger for repeatedly raising the issue was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.
Does it mean that the author compares anger with the emotions and the action of preventing the raw wounds from ...?
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ----Russell
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You've misplaced a modifier; if you want to rewrite the sentence as you have, you need to parse it as:Caroline Lee wrote:If anger is the subject of the sentence, it can be rewritten in blow sentence with the normal sequence that a verb followes a subject. Do you agree with it?OG wrote:...
Anger is the subject and it is singular. ...
Anger for repeatedly raising the issue was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.
Does it mean that the author compares anger with the emotions and the action of preventing the raw wounds from ...?
Let's ignore the modifying phrases and cut to the heart of the sentence:Anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
and you can see that "anger" is indeed the subject of the sentence.Anger... was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
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The correct idiom is 'To prevent X from doing Y' ,but C,D and E use 'preventing the wounds ...to begin' .So they can be eliminated based on the idiom. A has redundancy issue.It uses 'repeatedly' and 'over and over again'.Hence correct answer should be B
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I got it. Thanks Stuart.Stuart Kovinsky wrote: You've misplaced a modifier; if you want to rewrite the sentence as you have, you need to parse it as:
Let's ignore the modifying phrases and cut to the heart of the sentence:Anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
and you can see that "anger" is indeed the subject of the sentence.Anger... was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ----Russell