Sentence Correction

Greatly influenced by the Protestant missionary Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided with the colonists during the American Revolution.

(A) was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided
(B) was alone of the five-nation Iroquois League when they sided
(C) alone among the five nations of the Iroquois League sided
(D) were the only ones out of the five nations of the Iroquois League in siding
(E) only of the five-nation Iroquois League had sided

[spoiler]OA: C[/spoiler]

oneida is plural

A- nation should have been nations. Also who here refers to league wheras it should refer to Oneida.

B- nation should have been nations."they" is incorrect


D- were is not correct here.
E- nation should have been nations.

any more thought?

IMO A

I am not seeing any error with C nut somehow it is looking awkward to me.

I would have selected A.

others can be avoided easily.

I would prefer staying away from this question. Its not my difficulty range

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/gre ... -t648.html

kvcpk wrote:I would prefer staying away from this question. Its not my difficulty range

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/gre ... -t648.html

I did not understand the explanation.

Experts, please come, shed some light on it.

Thanks.

why the wrong options are wrong?

please..........

I would have gotten this wrong on a test, but I believe these are the explanations:

The problem with A & B is "the Oneida" is plural and cant be used with the verb was. It would require either are or were.

E I believe would be eliminated due to ambiguity. "The Oneida only of the five-nation Iroquois League had sided " could mean there are two sets of Oneida citizens--- those of the Iroquois league and those not in the league.

D I believe is wrong because of "in siding". "The Oneida were the only ones... in siding" I dont believe is grammaticslly correct. Siding should be an action meaning they should use either to side or who sided.

That leaves C which reduces to "The Oneida...sided". It seems like it should have commas in it, but even if that ios the case it is still the best option.

when used as an adjective, you do not make "five-nation" plural, just as you would not refer to a four-sideds figure.

Does 'who' goes with singular or plural?

I am copying an excerpt from MGMAT site. https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/gre ... -t648.html

I didn't understand below analysis, can someone explain please?

More on Option A

I would like to add .....

Two Possibilities:
1) For somebody who doesn't know about Oneida would take it as a league/ some association/nation and hence singular. In that case, 'was' would be correct and 'who' would be incorrect.

2) If I know that "the Oneida" refers to an entire tribe / group / race and hence plural, then 'was' would be incorrect and 'who' would be correct.

Another reason for choosing C - it avoids the difficulty of whether or not to use "who" for a group of people. MoIre importantly, when you say "the only one of the ...Iriquois league" you are sayong "only one of" a singular noun. That makes no senes. It's like saying "only one of the apple was ripe".

Important: The purpose of this post (and all the other posts by me) is to give a complete solution to all GMAT-Prep Verbal questions at one place. Sometimes students have to wade through dozens of posts to get to the final answer. My posts will give one complete and crisp solution required to arrive at the correct answer by eliminating the wrong one. Some of the content in these posts may have been taken from various other sources (discussion forums).

Greatly influenced by the Protestant missionary Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided with the colonists during the American Revolution.
(A) was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided
(B) was alone of the five-nation Iroquois League when they sided
(C) alone among the five nations of the Iroquois League sided
(D) were the only ones out of the five nations of the Iroquois League in siding
(E) only of the five-nation Iroquois League had sided

In this question, "the Oneida" functions identically to constructions such as "the French" or "the English", which are also plural. The phrase "the Oneida" refers to an entire tribe / group / race. So, A and B are eliminated.

D uses the wrong idiom 'in siding'.

Imagine the sentence: He was the only one (to win / in winning) the match. Here, obviously, the right answer will be 'to win'. By the same logic, D is wrong.

E. 'had sided' is wrong because only one past action is described in the sentence.

C: correct

Mitch/Marty:

C: I was looking for commas- , alone among the five nations of the Iroquois League,

I know the gmat does n't test punctuation but I thought they will at least have proper punctuation in correct choices. Is it common for GMAC to flout punctuation rules even in correct answers or the punctuation rules are themselves not set in stone?

Thanks