i received a private message about this thread.
you should ignore this question; it's not useful, and it will misdirect your attention onto things that are not actually tested on this exam.
* first,
the gmat has never tested the singular/plural status of "none".
... and they won't, either, because this is one of those issues on which there's a lot of disagreement among language experts. there's a substantial contingent of experts who insist that "none" is always singular, but there's also a substantial contingent of experts who insist that it can be either singular or plural.
it won't be tested.
* there's not sufficient context to decide the verb tense.
this sentence gives no context whatsoever for the observation, so there's no way of telling which tense should be used for sure.
viz.:
-- if someone actually solved the puzzle between this morning and now, then (b) would be correct. (as of this morning no one
was able to solve it ... but then someone did.)
-- if it's still currently morning, and the puzzle is still unsolved, then the tense that's used in (a), (c), and (d) is appropriate.
basically, the only choice here that's
definitely wrong,
for reasons that are actually tested on this exam, is E (because "nobody" doesn't agree with "have").
by the way, i've noticed that many, many problems from this particular source have
lots of issues. you are better off not using this source.
gmatJuly30 wrote:As of this morning, none of my friends have been able to solve the puzzle contained in last week's newspaper.
A. none of my friends have been able to solve
B. none of my friends was able to solve
C. not one of my friends has yet been able to solve
D. none of my friends has been able to solve
E. nobody among my friends have solved
