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Manhattan and Kaplan.

by gauravgundal » Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:22 am
Source : Kalpan 800 Verbal

As of this morning, none of my friends have been able to solve the puzzle contained in last week's newspaper.
(A)none of my friends have been able to solve
(B)none of my friends was able to solve
(C)not one of my friends has yet been able to olve
(D)none of my friends has been able to solve
(E)nobody among my friends have solved

Kaplan says that None is singular (like every or everyone) and have been is plural. Singular subjects need singular verbs, so we can immediately eliminate (A) and (E). As for (B), Has been beats was. So answer is D


but what manhattan has to say for SANAM pronouns verb depends on the of construction. So according to Manhattan A is correct.


Which is the Offical GMAT answer please reply me Experts.
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:22 am
"None of them is" vs "none of them are" is a heated debate among grammarians (at the 1993 grammar symposium in Berne, Switzerland, two noted British scholars were stabbed by an angry Australian over just this issue).

The traditional rule is that, since "none" is a contraction of "no one", and "one" is singular, none always takes a singular verb, regardless of what follows.

In popular usage, however, plural verbs are often used (most people find them more natural in the construction).

Today, at least in the regular world, both are considered acceptable. However, we're not dealing with the real world, we're dealing with the wild and wonderful world of the GMAT, which brings us to your question: "which one does the GMAT accept"?

I'll do a quick flip through the OG on Monday (I'm not in the office until then) and see if it arises in any questions - I'll also talk to the Kaplan team about it.
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by maihuna » Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:48 am
I just gone through all OG guides, there is no tests of none, i mean no Q tests the singularity/plurality of none...IMHO Manhattan is ridiculous with certain pronoun tests to the extent they rely on it...
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by Stacey Koprince » Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:31 am
It is true that the issue of "none" is never tested in OG11. It does show up in 2 problems (in non-underlined parts) and, in both cases, the singular version is used.

Our book does explicitly state that "none + plural noun" can take either the singular or the plural verb form (bottom of page 40 in the 4th edition).

I wouldn't worry about it much unless / until we see an official problem that tests it. On the off chance that you do see something like this on the test, I would suspect that the GMAT will go with the "older" rule, which is that "none + plural noun" will be singular. They tend not to go with popular constructions or recent changes in usage.
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