chaitanya.mehrotra wrote:The majority of the talk was devoted to an account of the experimental methods used by investigators in the field.
a. ...
b. The greater part of the talk was
c. The bulk of the talk has been
d. A large amount of the talk has been
e. A predominance of the talk was

I chose A, but the correct answer is B. Why is A wrong ?

what's the source of this problem?
wherever you got it -- do not use this source from this point onward.

this question is worthless; in fact, any of (a), (b), (c), (d) could be correct. (the only choice that's definitively wrong here is (e), which misuses the word "predominance".)

Ron the source of this question is the beat the gmat SC resources ..

yikes. well, it's still a horrible question, and a case could still be made for any of A/B/C/D. (both verb tenses are logical -- "has been" works if the talk is still going on; "was" works if the talk is over. also, all of the idioms in a/b/c/d are legitimate, although a couple of them are stylistically weird.)

is there an answer explanation given? if so, what does it say?

smackmartine wrote:I totally agree to what Ron said, but many instructors say that we should not change the tense unless there is a shift in time. Keeping that in mind, I just cruised through options and rejected C and D (has been devoted--> present perfect compared to used) . Among A,B and E

"used" here is not a past-tense verb -- it's a past participle (which functions as an adjective). such participles don't have tenses; they adapt to the tense of the clause to which they are attached.
therefore, there is no "change" in the tense, because there are no other verbs in the sentence besides was/has been.

given this context, basically *any* tense would be fine.
was --> the talk is over.
has been --> the talk is ongoing, and the sentence describes the part that has so far been given.
is (not in the choices, but workable) --> general discussion of the talk (perhaps from its authors).

E does not sound right because predominance is a "quality" and we are dealing with "some kind of quantity - countable/uncountable"

not sure what you mean here, but you're correct that "predominance" is wrong. (the easiest way to find out more about "predominance" is to consult a dictionary.)

A - Majority of TALKS and not TALK (I am not sure on this but I have never seen a singular objects used with Majority. Eg. Majority of students ARE (plural usage) , while for singular usage --> In the election, the Majority HAS the power).

it's true that "majority" is used with plurals in the majority of instances (heh), but it can also be used with singular / uncountable quantities.

in fact, the OG itself uses it in this way at times. e.g., see p. 37 of OG12, problem 29, in which "the majority of the coal" is mentioned.