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SANAM Pronouns

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SANAM Pronouns

by abhay2008 » Sun Aug 24, 2008 11:06 pm
As quoted from the Manhattan SC book,
Any of the SANAM Pronouns ( Some, Any, None, All and Many ) can be either singular or plural depending upon the context of the sentence, or more specifically based on the 'of' construction.

Example:
None of my friends have been able to solve.. (a)
None of my friends has been able to solve.. (b)

So based on above hypothesis, we can conclude that (a) is correct because 'friends' is plural.
However, Kaplan contradicts this straight -considering 'None' to be universally singular.

Can someone please help me understand the contradiction?
Abhay
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by mksreeram » Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:48 am
I am not sure what Kaplan says. I checked the SANAM pronouns in questions. Where Many is used it can be singular or plural.

I need to check for "NONE", will let you know the same.

Check the following questions in OG 10
Bold text where SANAM pronoun is used.
Underlined is the part to be corrected

OG 10 - Question 55
A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.
(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face
Answer E is correct (look at "have" is used for "many doctors" so plural)


OG 10 - Question 176
As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientists now believe that all of the information encoded in 50.000 to 100.000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely three percent of the cell's DNA.

(A) 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely
(B) 50,000 to 100,000 of the human cell's different genes are contained in a mere
(C) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in human cells are contained in merely
(D) 50,000 to 100,000 of human cells' different genes is contained in merely
(E) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in a human cell is contained in a mere

Look at the question itself. "believe" is used for many scientists (if it is singluar "believes" need to be used)

OG 10 - Question 187

In one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, four times as many Americans were killed as would later be killed on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day.
(A) Americans were killed as
(B) Americans were killed than
(C) Americans were killed than those who
(D) more Americans were killed as there
(E) more Americans were killed as those who
Answer A is correct (look at "were" is used for many Americans so plural)
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by pepeprepa » Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:43 am
https://www.beatthegmat.com/sc-question-t8332.html
https://www.beatthegmat.com/kaplan-800-s ... 10773.html

This sentence requires further explanations:
"As of this morning, none of my friends has been able to solve the puzzle contained in the last week's newspaper."
What I understood is that we have to look at what is after the "of" BUT if none is the subject we make the verb singular, is it true?
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by abhay2008 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:10 pm
Thanks guys. But, somehow- the confusion still continues.
Based on the majority opinion, I think i will consider Kaplan wrong here, and stick to MGMAT SC.

None of my friends have been.. (plural)

Sreeram,
I think the examples given in this context are incorrect because in each of the three examples, 'many doctors', 'many scientists', etc., the subject is considered plural not because of many but with 'doctors' and 'scientists'..

Pepeprep,
Thanks for the links. It did help to some extent..
Abhay
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by iwill » Mon Aug 25, 2008 6:58 pm
I m confused!

Is ther ny experts to enlighten us ? :)

Thanks,
Iwill
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by mksreeram » Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:06 pm
abhay2008 wrote:Thanks guys. But, somehow- the confusion still continues.
Based on the majority opinion, I think i will consider Kaplan wrong here, and stick to MGMAT SC.

None of my friends have been.. (plural)

Sreeram,
I think the examples given in this context are incorrect because in each of the three examples, 'many doctors', 'many scientists', etc., the subject is considered plural not because of many but with 'doctors' and 'scientists'..

Pepeprep,
Thanks for the links. It did help to some extent..
Many Doctors - > since doctors are plural Many still holds it plural not singular.

There are few questions where "None of the X" is considered singular. I am not sure still whether to take None as singular or plural. I would suggest you come to conclusion on the "None" part after seeing certain questions and get some expert comments.
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OG 10 - Question 176

by swatirpr » Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:53 pm
mksreeram wrote:I am not sure what Kaplan says. I checked the SANAM pronouns in questions. Where Many is used it can be singular or plural.

I need to check for "NONE", will let you know the same.

Check the following questions in OG 10
Bold text where SANAM pronoun is used.
Underlined is the part to be corrected

OG 10 - Question 55
A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.
(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face
Answer E is correct (look at "have" is used for "many doctors" so plural)


OG 10 - Question 176
As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientists now believe that all of the information encoded in 50.000 to 100.000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely three percent of the cell's DNA.

(A) 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely
(B) 50,000 to 100,000 of the human cell's different genes are contained in a mere
(C) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in human cells are contained in merely
(D) 50,000 to 100,000 of human cells' different genes is contained in merely
(E) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in a human cell is contained in a mere

Look at the question itself. "believe" is used for many scientists (if it is singluar "believes" need to be used)

OG 10 - Question 187

In one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, four times as many Americans were killed as would later be killed on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day.
(A) Americans were killed as
(B) Americans were killed than
(C) Americans were killed than those who
(D) more Americans were killed as there
(E) more Americans were killed as those who
Answer A is correct (look at "were" is used for many Americans so plural)
Explaination for following question:

OG 10 - Question 176
As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientists now believe that all of the information encoded in 50.000 to 100.000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely three percent of the cell's DNA.

(A) 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely
(B) 50,000 to 100,000 of the human cell's different genes are contained in a mere
(C) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in human cells are contained in merely
(D) 50,000 to 100,000 of human cells' different genes is contained in merely
(E) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in a human cell is contained in a mere

"All of the information" - here 'ALL' is singular since 'information' is singular
so 2-3 split
A, B C gone

D and E
D is awkward

so Answer is E
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by vaibhav.iit2002 » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:30 pm
Verb with "None" depends on the word after "of". E.g. "None of the students" need plural verb.
"None" and "No one" are not same "No one" always takes singular verb[as per Princeton] whereas this isn't case with "None". To further extend, "No one" and "Not one" both take singular verb.

https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-non2.htm
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by pkw209 » Thu Apr 29, 2010 1:19 pm
This seriously needs to be clarified by an expert, if possible. BTG FLASHCARDS and Kaplan say that "none of" is always singular even though it sounds like it should be plural, while MGMAT says it depends on the "of"

What is the correct answer? does anyone in this world know? I created another post discussing this very issue.
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by lunarpower » Sat Nov 20, 2010 2:38 am
abhay2008 wrote:As quoted from the Manhattan SC book,
Any of the SANAM Pronouns ( Some, Any, None, All and Many ) can be either singular or plural depending upon the context of the sentence, or more specifically based on the 'of' construction.
whoa, where did you get the idea that "many" is one of these?
"many" is very clearly plural, in all cases that you're going to see on the test.

i don't have the book handy, but i would imagine that the "m" stands for either "more" or "most", both of which can vary between singular and plural.
i.e., "more of the X" is singular if X itself is singular, and plural if X itself is plural (same goes for "most of the X").

(there are poetic uses in which "many a NOUN" is used as a singular construction -- for instance, many a soldier was killed, but the army marched on -- but you will not see such poetic uses on the test.)

--

weirdly enough, i don't think that the "none" issue has ever actually been tested, nor do i think it ever will be tested.

the "none" issue is tested
* exactly 0 times in GMAT PREP
* exactly 0 times in OG11
* exactly 0 times in OG12
* exactly 0 times in OG verbal supplement 2nd ed

... so, well, i don't think that we should worry about it. to me, it's quite obvious that gmac is avoiding testing this concept entirely, because it's just too controversial.

for what it's worth, because i like to data-mine:

* in the official SC problems, ALL uses of "none" are singular. NONE of them is (heh) ever tested.
witness:
- OG12 #4 ("none is/was" -- all singular)
- OG12 #22 ("none explains" -- non-underlined; singular)
- OG Verbal 2nd answer explanation #79 ("none appears in...")

* on the other hand, "none" is plural in some CR and RC passages/choices. it's tempting to think that the authors of the CR and RC passages just don't care as much about such minutiae, but, i think, it's still somewhat important to notice them:
- passage on p398 of OG12 ("none of these high-technology methods are of any value")
- OG12 CR #118 ("None of Northern Air's competitors that use Belleville Airport are considering...")

so ... there you go.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by amir_hatef » Sat Nov 20, 2010 5:42 am
Excellent clarification by Ron. Ron: I don't know really how to thank you man, you ARE awesome to that extent of which without your hints GMAT would not exist anymore.
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