Sentence Correction

got it wrong in gprep.. pls explain the answer.

Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.
a.
b. Analyses of campaign expenditures by the media has been focused on
c. In analyzing campaign expenditures, the media have focused on
d. Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus
e. In their analysis of campaign expenditures, the media has been focusing on.

OA C

Since media is plural we must use have

Hence C

Moreover I think have focused(present perfect) is appropriate since its used to indicate an indefinite time in the past

leaonae wrote:got it wrong in gprep.. pls explain the answer.

Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.
a.
b. Analyses of campaign expenditures by the media has been focused on
c. In analyzing campaign expenditures, the media have focused on
d. Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus
e. In their analysis of campaign expenditures, the media has been focusing on.

OA C

Even if you are not sure media is singluar or plural. non-underline part clears your doubt..

media have focused. .... , but they<media> overlooked.

'media' is plural' ? Why is it not collective noun like army ... ?

Mostly latin derived words ending in a are plural

media
data (singular will be datum)

Useful to know.

x2suresh pointed out something important (that we usually overlook) i.e to use the non underlined part as an aid if needed.

Regards,
CR

Thanks All, got the concept..
And as x2suresh said, when in doubt, we should read the complete sentence.. I got this wrong as i was running out of time in the V section. neways.. I got the concept..
Thanks Again !

Can someone please tell what is wrong with D ?

goelmohit2002 wrote:Can someone please tell what is wrong with D ?

Hi Mohit,
Let me write the question to explain why D is incorrect.

Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.
d. Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus

If you say that Media analyses..., it's absolutely correct grammatically. However, if you look at the sentence which is not underlined, it says "but they have". If we use Media analyses as a noun, then they will not have any referent. In this question, "they" should refer to "Media" and not "Media analyses".
Please let me know if you got my point. I am not so good in explaining the answers

riteshbindal wrote:

goelmohit2002 wrote:Can someone please tell what is wrong with D ?

Hi Mohit,
Let me write the question to explain why D is incorrect.

Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.
d. Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus

If you say that Media analyses..., it's absolutely correct grammatically. However, if you look at the sentence which is not underlined, it says "but they have". If we use Media analyses as a noun, then they will not have any referent. In this question, "they" should refer to "Media" and not "Media analyses".
Please let me know if you got my point. I am not so good in explaining the answers

Thanks Ritesh,

I got it what you meant by the above post....but can you please tell why they cannot refer to Media Analyses....atleast I do not find any issues as such if they refer to Media Analyses....

Can you please tell what I am missing here ?

goelmohit2002 wrote:

riteshbindal wrote:

goelmohit2002 wrote:Can someone please tell what is wrong with D ?

Hi Mohit,
Let me write the question to explain why D is incorrect.

Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.
d. Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus

If you say that Media analyses..., it's absolutely correct grammatically. However, if you look at the sentence which is not underlined, it says "but they have". If we use Media analyses as a noun, then they will not have any referent. In this question, "they" should refer to "Media" and not "Media analyses".
Please let me know if you got my point. I am not so good in explaining the answers

Thanks Ritesh,

I got it what you meant by the above post....but can you please tell why they cannot refer to Media Analyses....atleast I do not find any issues as such if they refer to Media Analyses....

Can you please tell what I am missing here ?

I think that if we use "they have generally overlooked", it should be media who have overlooked. Analyses shouldn't be able to overlook.

Hi Ritesh,

Can D be kicked out on the basis of "have had"....isn't had wrong tense used here ?

Also can D be kicked out based on parallelism....
D says....
Analyses "have had".....but they "have overlooked"....

But C looks to be following parallelism...

Media "have focussed"....but they "have overlooked"...

Please tell what do you think about the same ?

Thanks

"have had as a focus X" in D is way wordier/indirect than "have focused on X" in C

(they both use present perfect tense though, in terms of tense, they are parallel)

Eliminate A, B and D as you have has here and in the sentence it is stated that "but they have generally overlooked". Thus you need to use have.

Eliminate D as "had as a focus" is unidiomatic.

The answer is C[/b][/i]

goelmohit2002 wrote:Can someone please tell what is wrong with D ?

A) ...the media has had as a focus...

D) Media analyses... have had as a focus...

Since D) changes the meaning of the original sentence, D) is wrong.

Regards,

A nice trick by GMAT test writers, when GMAT SC books sell "collective nouns are singular".

Read the whole sentence to check whether a collective noun is a plural or singular. In this case, the second clause makes "the media" plural. Given this, choose the best choice.