BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Tough Kaplan Question. Experts Please Help.

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Locked
Previous Topic Next Topic
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun May 26, 2013 8:52 pm

Tough Kaplan Question. Experts Please Help.

by inavdeep » Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:59 am
Out of public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

A) other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

B) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

C) another person's life has grown a booming market for a "reality" television shows, which is bringing

D) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which is bringing

E) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which bring


Answer to this question is D but i feel it should be B. Can someone please explain why is B wrong
Top
Source: — Sentence Correction |
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 269
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:46 am
Thanked: 94 times
Followed by:7 members

by mevicks » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:28 am
inavdeep wrote:Out of public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

A) other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

B) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

C) another person's life has grown a booming market for a "reality" television shows, which is bringing

D) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which is bringing

E) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which bring


Answer to this question is D but i feel it should be B. Can someone please explain why is B wrong
Hi inavdeep,

Booming market [singular] requires a singular verb has. Thus answer A is out.
The core sentence after eliminating the warmups like prepositional phrases becomes:
Interest has grown a booming market which is bringing people with increasing frequency.

This leaves us with only answers C & D. B is incorrect because booming market [singular] requires are. E is out because the tense mismatch of bring. It should be "bringing" to match the actions with the progressive tense of the verb "increasing". The phrase "for a" .. shows in option C is incorrect, requires a plural context. C is out. (Moreover, could not find any issue with another, other in C & D. They both seem to refer life[singular] and lives[plural] correctly)

We are left with D

Regards,
Vivek
Top
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun May 26, 2013 8:52 pm

by inavdeep » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:34 am
mevicks wrote:
inavdeep wrote:Out of public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

A) other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

B) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

C) another person's life has grown a booming market for a "reality" television shows, which is bringing

D) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which is bringing

E) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which bring


Answer to this question is D but i feel it should be B. Can someone please explain why is B wrong
Hi inavdeep,

Booming market [singular] requires a singular verb has. Thus answer A is out.
The core sentence after eliminating the warmups like prepositional phrases becomes:
Interest has grown a booming market which is bringing people with increasing frequency.

This leaves us with only answers C & D. B is incorrect because booming market [singular] requires are. E is out because the tense mismatch of bring. It should be "bringing" to match the actions with the progressive tense of the verb "increasing". The phrase "for a" .. shows in option C is incorrect, requires a plural context. C is out. (Moreover, could not find any issue with another, other in C & D. They both seem to refer life[singular] and lives[plural] correctly)

We are left with D

Regards,
Vivek

Hey,

Thanks for the response...but I'm a little confused with "which"...doesn't "which" here refers to the telivision shows ???
Top
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 269
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:46 am
Thanked: 94 times
Followed by:7 members

by mevicks » Thu Oct 03, 2013 9:01 am
inavdeep wrote: Hey,

Thanks for the response...but I'm a little confused with "which"...doesn't "which" here refers to the telivision shows ???
Hi,

Although the subject seems to be "a booming market", you are right in identifying that "which" should modify the noun immediately preceding the comma. But considering the circumstances only D seems to be the correct choice. (A "that" instead of which would have made more sense, but going by the face value of the question - a kaplan based sc - we can assume the writers would have intended to mean something which could be a rarity on the GMAT).

The intended meaning of the sentence is that "The growing market for shows is bringing more people onto the tv screen" and not that "shows are bringing more people onto the tv screen".


Just my 2 cents worth...

Regards,
Vivek
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1556
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pm
Thanked: 448 times
Followed by:34 members
GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Thu Oct 03, 2013 9:29 am
Navdeep, welcome to the trap of "which"

I will give you a similar kind of example: The box of nails, which is on the counter, is to be used on this project.

Even though "which" by definition means that it refers to nearest noun... we need to check for legitimacy when the constructs are of form "X of Y".. basically prepositional.. and mostly, in such constructs, "which" refers to "X" and not "Y"
R A H U L
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 643
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:27 am
Thanked: 48 times
Followed by:7 members

by vinay1983 » Thu Oct 03, 2013 5:31 pm
inavdeep wrote:Out of public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

A) other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

B) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing

C) another person's life has grown a booming market for a "reality" television shows, which is bringing

D) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which is bringing

E) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which bring


Answer to this question is D but i feel it should be B. Can someone please explain why is B wrong
Observe some splits here. You can see many here.

It should be other people's lives and not otherwise. So E is out. "Out of public's interest" needs "has" because interest is singular here. Rule out option A here. Down to B C D

Here it has to be "is" after which(it is not appropriate usage here. Remember GMAC will never give scope to ambiguity, it will be air tight). The intended meaning here is that the market has drawn people to the tv shows, so "market" is singular hence "is".

I would suggest you to avoid such ambiguous sentence constructions, since as far as i have seen GMAT questions are never ambiguous(except test questions) or that gives scope for such "hmmm this should have been better" questions.

Hope I could be of some help
You can, for example never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to!
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1556
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pm
Thanked: 448 times
Followed by:34 members
GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Thu Oct 03, 2013 5:55 pm
vinay1983 wrote:
Observe some splits here. You can see many here.

It should be other people's lives and not otherwise. So E is out. "Out of public's interest" needs "has" because interest is singular here. Rule out option A here. Down to B C D

Here it has to be "is" after which(it is not appropriate usage here. Remember GMAC will never give scope to ambiguity, it will be air tight). The intended meaning here is that the market has drawn people to the tv shows, so "market" is singular hence "is".

I would suggest you to avoid such ambiguous sentence constructions, since as far as i have seen GMAT questions are never ambiguous(except test questions) or that gives scope for such "hmmm this should have been better" questions.

Hope I could be of some help
Vinay, this question is 99% similar to one of the question in OG (I guess OG11); the only difference is the usage of "that" in place of ",which".

This is a 800 Level Problem
R A H U L
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 643
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:27 am
Thanked: 48 times
Followed by:7 members

by vinay1983 » Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:25 pm
theCodeToGMAT wrote:
vinay1983 wrote:
Observe some splits here. You can see many here.

It should be other people's lives and not otherwise. So E is out. "Out of public's interest" needs "has" because interest is singular here. Rule out option A here. Down to B C D

Here it has to be "is" after which(it is not appropriate usage here. Remember GMAC will never give scope to ambiguity, it will be air tight). The intended meaning here is that the market has drawn people to the tv shows, so "market" is singular hence "is".

I would suggest you to avoid such ambiguous sentence constructions, since as far as i have seen GMAT questions are never ambiguous(except test questions) or that gives scope for such "hmmm this should have been better" questions.

Hope I could be of some help
Vinay, this question is 99% similar to one of the question in OG (I guess OG11); the only difference is the usage of "that" in place of ",which".

This is a 800 Level Problem
I appreciate your contribution here Rahul, but what are you trying to get at exactly?Sorry i could not follow you :?:Although I agree with you w.r.t "which" construction you have mentioned in the post above mine. But its a rarity. Still as far as i know GMAC has many tricks in its bag to fool us, let alone have such small things to worried about. But the question you have posted of OG 11, maybe there might have been something else to identify or observe (after all 1% is enough to do so)

Aside : Can you post the question so as to delve over it!Thanks
You can, for example never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to!
Top
User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1556
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pm
Thanked: 448 times
Followed by:34 members
GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:07 pm
Vinay, i don't have OG11.. but when I searched on Web I found comments from people stating that this question is very similar to OG11 question.

Yep, I agree with you that such questions are rarity.. but they are many such sentences.. I remember I have solved around 4-5 such questions before as well.

For example: The box of nails, which is on the counter, is to be used on this project.

It's more of "X of Y" game..
R A H U L
Top
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 269
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:46 am
Thanked: 94 times
Followed by:7 members

by mevicks » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:49 pm
vinay1983 wrote: Aside : Can you post the question so as to delve over it!Thanks
It seems that the posted question is a Rip off of OG11 #116. This is discussed in depth here:
https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2013/07 ... orrection/

Regards,
Vivek
Top
Post new topic Locked
• Page 1 of 1