Sentence Correction

The administration has increased the number of fines for mining safety violations as part of their campaign to protect miners.


A)has increased the number of fines for mining safety violations as part of their
B)have increased the number of fines for mining safety violations as part of their
C)has increased the number of fines for mining safety violations as part of its
D)has increased the amount of fines for mining safety violations as part of its
E)have increased the amount of fines for mining safety violations as part of their

IMO C. What is the OA

I am confused between C and D...

Source: MGMAT test

I am stucked between C and D. The number or the amount which of these make sense?

If I am correct I remember this problem and OA answer to it is C.

like everyone here I was confused between C and D... and incorrectly chose D.

Now what follows is totally my thoughts (don't believe them if you don't like them ):)

Well, at first sight it may seem that in D the meaning is that administration increases the $ of fine...like if fine was 5$ now it will be 100$ but the problem is that the sentence does not convey this... in actuality it conveys the same as C but only the 'amount' is incorrectly used because fines are actually countable.. and you know 'amount' is used with uncountable nouns only.

OK, so why does not D convey the meaning that $ of fine was increased? well, I think the reason is that we are talking of $ of number of fines (because the noun 'fine' is plural) but using 'amount' in singular... I mean if the sentence read ' the amountS of fineS' THEN MAYBE we would have more reason to select D... But while D reads 'the amount of fineS' it refers to the total number of fines rather than $ of fine...

It would be great to hear the explanation of others too..

IMO C.

A: Administration is Singular. Their has no referent.
B & E. "Have" is incorrect
D: fines are countable

But Folks, "amount of fines" actually makes sense.... For example, if traffic police wants to enforce strict regulations, they usually increase "the amount of fines" not "the number of fines" - i.e Traffic violation would now cost $400 instead of $200 before....

Does anyone agree?

I'm pretty confident that the answer should be D; please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that number of fines would indicate that there are multiple fines involved (i.e. Fine #1 - $572.00, Fine #2 - $1023.00, etc.). This isn't what the sentence means; it refers to the value of the fine itself, which is not really "countable" per say.

IMO C

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... fines.html

Domnu wrote:I'm pretty confident that the answer should be D; please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that number of fines would indicate that there are multiple fines involved (i.e. Fine #1 - $572.00, Fine #2 - $1023.00, etc.). This isn't what the sentence means; it refers to the value of the fine itself, which is not really "countable" per say.

I'll go with D too. I agree with Domnu... I reached D through the same method. Seniors...plz correct me if i am wrong.

hetavdave wrote:

Domnu wrote:I'm pretty confident that the answer should be D; please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that number of fines would indicate that there are multiple fines involved (i.e. Fine #1 - $572.00, Fine #2 - $1023.00, etc.). This isn't what the sentence means; it refers to the value of the fine itself, which is not really "countable" per say.

I'll go with D too. I agree with Domnu... I reached D through the same method. Seniors...plz correct me if i am wrong.

Why can't there be multiple fines?
it says "increased the number of fines for mining safety violations" . so there might be different fines for different violations.

it looks like the OA is C

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mgmat-cumber ... 17523.html

IMO C. Fines are countable.

The answer is (C) only as MGMAT.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/cum ... t1510.html

As per MGMAT staff:
Rule of thumb: If a noun is plural, that is the GMAT's way of telling you it is countable. You can't have plural (two or more) of something without being able to count at least 2 of those things!