Plural vs Singular

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sankruth: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 195; Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:33 am; Thanked: 10 times

by sankruth » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:13 am

Among the emotions on display in the negotiating room were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.

(A) were anger for repeatedly raising the issue over and over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(B) was anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal
(C) were anger over repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin healing
(D) was anger about the issue, which was raised over and over, and preventing the wounds from earlier battles, still raw, to begin healing
(E) were anger about the issue, which was raised repeatedly, and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles to begin to heal

what should i consider before choosing was or were - emotions (so plural) or anger (so singular)

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:13 am

simplyjat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 423; Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:29 amFollowed by: 2 members; Location: Hyderabad, India; Thanked: 36 times; GMAT Score:770

by simplyjat » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:36 am

"And" always result in plural....
because "anger for repeatedly raising the issue over" & "preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal" are joined by AND you should user WERE

Last edited by simplyjat on Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

simplyjat

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sankruth: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 195; Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:33 am; Thanked: 10 times

by sankruth » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:53 am

simplyjat wrote:"And" always result in plural....
because "anger for repeatedly raising the issue over" & "over again and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal" are joined by AND you should user WERE

The sentence mentions emotions on display, one of which is anger. The sentence construct is anger over A and B, where A - repeatedly raising the issue and B is preventing healing. In other words, preventing wounds from healing is not an emotion on display.

So, since only one emotion, anger, is mentioned should I choose "was"?

or

Because the sentene starts with 'Among the emotions...', we must use "were"

BTW, the OA is B (But I have seen instances where the OA in 1000SC has been wrong)

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Stuart@KaplanGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3225; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:40 pmFollowed by: 614 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 1710 times; GMAT Score:800

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:32 am

"Anger" is the subject, so "was" is the correct verb.

"Among" constructs could demand singular or plural verbs, depending on what follows among.

For example:

Among the people in the room, Bob was the most prepared.

or

Among the people in the room, Darlene and Mark were the least prepared.

As you can see in both examples, "people" is plural, but has no impact on the verb form.

(Simplyjat: "and" in the sentence joins the two reasons why anger was such a strong emotion - it doesn't join two emotions, which would create a compound noun)

Stuart Kovinsky | Kaplan GMAT Faculty | Toronto

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simplyjat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 423; Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:29 amFollowed by: 2 members; Location: Hyderabad, India; Thanked: 36 times; GMAT Score:770

by simplyjat » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:23 pm

Stuart, I got the point, but I am wondering about the parallelism in the sentence. Are the two reasons for anger specified parallelly correct ?

simplyjat

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OG: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 1; Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:09 pm; Location: Chicago

by OG » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:29 pm

I would choose B.

Anger is the subject and it is singular. So, I would eliminate A, C and E.

Between B and D, I would choose B. D just does not sound right. It sounds like it makes both "anger" and "preventing" subjects without changing the verb to plural.

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Caroline Lee: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 18; Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:06 am

by Caroline Lee » Fri Dec 18, 2009 11:38 pm

OG wrote:...

Anger is the subject and it is singular. ...

If anger is the subject of the sentence, it can be rewritten in blow sentence with the normal sequence that a verb followes a subject. Do you agree with it?

Anger for repeatedly raising the issue was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.

Does it mean that the author compares anger with the emotions and the action of preventing the raw wounds from ...?

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ----Russell

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Stuart@KaplanGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3225; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:40 pmFollowed by: 614 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 1710 times; GMAT Score:800

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sat Dec 19, 2009 12:52 am

Caroline Lee wrote:
OG wrote:...

Anger is the subject and it is singular. ...
If anger is the subject of the sentence, it can be rewritten in blow sentence with the normal sequence that a verb followes a subject. Do you agree with it?

Anger for repeatedly raising the issue was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal.

Does it mean that the author compares anger with the emotions and the action of preventing the raw wounds from ...?

You've misplaced a modifier; if you want to rewrite the sentence as you have, you need to parse it as:

Anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.

Let's ignore the modifying phrases and cut to the heart of the sentence:

Anger... was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.

and you can see that "anger" is indeed the subject of the sentence.

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Focus_gmat: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 17; Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:55 pm; GMAT Score:600

by Focus_gmat » Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:25 am

The correct idiom is 'To prevent X from doing Y' ,but C,D and E use 'preventing the wounds ...to begin' .So they can be eliminated based on the idiom. A has redundancy issue.It uses 'repeatedly' and 'over and over again'.Hence correct answer should be B

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Caroline Lee: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 18; Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:06 am

by Caroline Lee » Sat Dec 19, 2009 4:21 am

Stuart Kovinsky wrote: You've misplaced a modifier; if you want to rewrite the sentence as you have, you need to parse it as:

Anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
Let's ignore the modifying phrases and cut to the heart of the sentence:

Anger... was among the emotions on display in the negotiating room.
and you can see that "anger" is indeed the subject of the sentence.

I got it. Thanks Stuart.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ----Russell

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