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WERE or WAS ?

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by saurabhmahajan » Mon Jul 05, 2010 12:48 am
Hi Friends,

In the sentence below should we use "were" or "was".......Also plz explain for the same.

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution were added in the second step of the experiment
Thanks and regards,
Saurabh Mahajan

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by kvcpk » Mon Jul 05, 2010 1:25 am
IMO,

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution was added in the second step of the experiment

Subject of the sentence is sodium chloride solution. It is singular. So it should be was.

Hope this helps!!
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by hardik.jadeja » Mon Jul 05, 2010 1:36 am
The correct sentence is

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution were added in the second step of the experiment.

When you see "X of Y" structure as subject, always use X to determine whether the verb should be plural or singular.

Hope that helps..
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by kvcpk » Mon Jul 05, 2010 2:05 am
hardik.jadeja wrote:The correct sentence is

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution were added in the second step of the experiment.

When you see "X of Y" structure as subject, always use X to determine whether the verb should be plural or singular.

Hope that helps..
Oh.. didnt know this.. Thanks for sharing Hardik..
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by loveusonu » Mon Jul 05, 2010 2:43 am
saurabhmahajan wrote:Hi Friends,

In the sentence below should we use "were" or "was".......Also plz explain for the same.

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution were added in the second step of the experiment
Were...what follows after preposition(of\in etc) is NOT the main noun.
Sonu
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by gmat_Tutor » Mon Jul 05, 2010 4:56 am
saurabhmahajan wrote:Hi Friends,

In the sentence below should we use "were" or "was".......Also plz explain for the same.

Fifty mililiters of the sodium chloride solution were added in the second step of the experiment
I can cite some examples from google:

=> SHOULD BE WAS:

Ten milliliters of the sodium hypochlorite solution is diluted to 100.0 mL.
wenty-five milliliters of raw milk was artificially contaminated.

SHOULD BE WERE:

Two milliliters of the sodium chloride solution were pipetted in a 150 ml beaker.
Five milliliters of the sodium reagent are used for each milliequivalent of sodium.

From these examples, we can not conclude which one should be used. It may be WAS or WERE.

Now, it is a request to experts to solve this issue.
Thanks.
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by Ritwik » Mon Jul 05, 2010 10:33 am
Noun I.e. Solution determines the verb in quantity phrases. Don't google. It's GMAT specific grammar.Use is with solution.
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