OG-12 SC Q-82 Recent Poll

According to a recent poll, owning and living in a freestanding house on its own land is still a goal of a majority of young adults, like that of earlier generations.

(A) like that of earlier generations
(B) as that for earlier generations
(C) just as earlier generations did
(D) as have earlier generations
(E) as it was of earlier generations

The OA is E .

According to a recent poll, owning and living in a
freestanding house on its own land is still a goal
of a majority of young adults, like that of earlier
generations.
(A) like that of earlier generations
(B) as that for earlier generations
(C) just as earlier generations did
(D) as have earlier generations
(E) as it was of earlier generations

The correct choice should be E. E uses "as" which is correct because as is used to compare clauses.

A uses like and like is used to compare two nouns. For eg, Bill, like Jim plays tennis.

B is incorrect because that is incorrectly used here.

C uses just incorrectly.

D says uses have incorrectly and remember it is a goal so it has to be singular as in E.

Hope this is good explanation for you!

Just a quick question: there's a singular verb 'is' for 'owning and living' . is there any rule for such use?

Owing and living isnt a verb here, the sentence is focusing on the "goal" of two generations
It is still a goal of a majority of young adults to owe and live in a freestanding house on its own land, as it was of earlier generation. I guess "owing and living" is used as gerund.

Surely 'owning' and 'living' are gerunds. Why isn't a plural verb 'are' used for two subjects joined by 'and'?

the exception to the rule about "and" is: if two words connected by "and" are thought of as a single unit, they are considered as singular subject. for example: ham and eggs is a high-cholesterol brakefast. in this example word "breakfast" follows is and that reinforces the conclusion that ham and eggs is a singular subject.
similarly, in this posted question "owing and living" is a singular unit refering to "goal" which is singular. hope this helps

sana.noor wrote:Owing and living isnt a verb here, the sentence is focusing on the "goal" of two generations
It is still a goal of a majority of young adults to owe and live in a freestanding house on its own land, as it was of earlier generation. I guess "owing and living" is used as gerund.

That's actually ok because gerunds can definitely form "compound subjects". For example:

Swimming and eating are my hobbies.

But as you rightly mentioned, this is a one-off case there "owning and living" is projected as "one monolithic goal" and not two separate, disjointed ones.

Thankfully this is in the non-underlined portion: ).