Sentence Correction

Ludacrispat26 wrote:

lunarpower wrote:

komal wrote:33. A group of sudents who have begun to clean up Frederick Law Olmstead's Morning Park in New York City believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but to be returned to its former condition

1)believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but to
2)believe that the park needs to not be redesigned but to
3)believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but could
4)believe that the park needs not to be redesigned but to
5)believe that the park needs not to be redesigned but that it

thephoenix is correct: this one should be (d). [editor: note changes! i definitely meant to write (d) - not quite sure what happened.]
the use of the plural verb "have begun" is 100% proof that the noun "group" is plural in this sentence.

it is impossible for the SAME INSTANCE of the SAME NOUN to shift between singular and plural.

i noticed that no one has posted an OA for this question.
what is the OA?

if the OA is not given as (d), what is the SOURCE of this problem?
i noticed the "33" in front of the problem, so, in all likelihood, this problem has been taken from some random collection of problems floating around the internet. in general, the answer keys to such collections are VERY unreliable; there are wrong answers all over the place.

Ron, I'd hate to challenge an expert, but as an MGMAT student I feel I have somewhat of an obligation to :)

Anyway, it seems to me that "who have begun to..." is clearly referring to/modifying "students," which is plural, whereas "believes" is referring to "group."

Another expert agreed here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/group-of-stud ... ee#p629182

Thanks!

ok, i see where you're coming from here. it would be a little strange to have a subject shift like that, but let's face it -- this is just a terrible problem. it's possible that this interpretation of yours could be accepted, but the problem is that there is also an alternative explanation (i.e., mine) which could also be accepted.

remember that real gmat problems are VERY literally correct in their interpretations. from an extremely literal standpoint -- which is, of course, the only standpoint that is actually allowed on this test -- you're going to run into trouble with "group" as the subject of believe(s), because believing is by definition something that only individuals can do. so the only subject that actually makes literal sense, in this case, would be "students".

but i do see where you're coming from, it's quite easy to construct sentences that do you have the sort of subject shift that you're talking about; here's one:
the association of students who want to perform charity work is accepting new members.
note the color-coded subjects and verbs; there is no ambiguity whatsoever in this sentence.

in any case, it's clear that were on the same page with regard to the major points, and that you have a more than adequate understanding of subject-verb agreement in this sort of situation. the only source of our disagreement, at this point, is the inferior nature of this problem in the first place.

let me ask again: what is the source of this problem? that source should be regarded with suspicion from now on.

komal wrote:

lunarpower wrote: i noticed that no one has posted an OA for this question.


let me ask again: what is the source of this problem? that source should be regarded with suspicion from now on.

Sorry i dint read this last post earlier on. The source is a set of difficult SCs which i downloaded off the net for SC practice and OA is A. Though i am not sure about the reliability of the OA.

yeah, you should be very suspicious of "sets of problems that are floating around the internet".

almost all such sets that i have personally seen tend to fall into one of two categories: either (a) ripped-off official problems, usually from gmat prep software, or (b) problems that are SO BAD that they are really not worth the time of day, and may even teach you takeaways that are incorrect.

this is especially the case for sentence correction problems. the gmat problems are written in a distinct style that is difficult for even the most experienced test prep professionals to imitate, so anonymous problem sets from dubious sources are almost certain to cause more problems than they will fix.

remember, test prep is an industry in which the consumer, almost by definition, can't really tell the quality of the product. (i.e., anyone who can reliably distinguish a quality problem from a non-quality problem won't need to purchase test prep products in the first place!)
as a result, you can expect the market to be flooded with products that are generally of highly questionable quality, especially when you are collecting sets off the internet without the backing of a reputable test prep company (and thus without any sort of reputation to ruin if they're bad).

you should try to stick with problems that are either (a) produced by reputable companies, or (b) advertised as collections of official problems from gmat prep.
remember that there are FAR more takeaways from these problems than most students tend to think; unless you have gone through EVERY ANSWER CHOICE and can explain PRECISELY why all of the wrong answer choices are wrong, you don't yet have a need for further materials.