Ivy GMAT subject verb agreement SC questions and Answers

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Subject Verb Agreement QUESTIONS
1. Noting that the price of oil and other fuel components, a major factor in the cost structure of an airline,
have risen and will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about their outlook for the
upcoming quarter.
"¢ have risen and will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about their
"¢ have risen and will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about the
"¢ will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about the
"¢ has risen and will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about their
"¢ will continue to rise, the company management was pessimistic about their
2. A higher interest rate is only one of the factors, albeit an important one, that keeps the housing market
from spiraling out of control, like it did earlier in the decade.
"¢ keeps the housing market from spiraling out of control, like it did
"¢ keep the housing market from spiraling out of control, as it did
"¢ keeps the housing market from spiraling out of control, as it did
"¢ keep the housing market from spiraling out of control, like
"¢ keep the housing market from spiraling out of control, like it did
3. The Daughters of the American Revolution, a volunteer service organization, admits as members only
women who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution.
"¢ admits as members only women who can prove lineal descent
"¢ admit as members only women who can prove lineal descent
"¢ admits as members women who can prove lineal descent
"¢ only admit as members women who can prove lineal descent
"¢ admits as members women who can prove lineal descent only
4. Consumption of bread products made from ergot-infected grains often trigger severely debilitating
symptoms such as muscle contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also cause a
significant reduction in maternal bleeding after childbirth.
"¢ bread products made from ergot-infected grains often trigger severely debilitating symptoms such as
muscle contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also cause a significant reduction in
"¢ products made from ergot-infected grains often trigger severely debilitating symptoms such as muscle
contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also cause significantly reduced
"¢ bread products made from ergot-infected grains often triggers severely debilitating symptoms such as
muscle contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also causes a significant reduction in
"¢ bread made from ergot-infected grains often triggers severely debilitating symptoms such as muscle
contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also cause a significant reduction in
"¢ bread products made from ergot-infected grains often trigger severely debilitating symptoms such as
muscle contractions, seizures and gangrene but, at a proper dose, also causes a significantly reduced
5. Since the mid-1990s, the central government of Botswana has been forcibly removing native Bushmen
from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve; the government justifies their actions by stating that it is too
costly to provide such basic services like medical care and schooling to such a remote area.
"¢ justifies their actions by stating that it is too costly to provide such basic services like
"¢ justifies their actions by stating it is too costly and expensive to provide such basic services as
"¢ justify their actions by stating that it is too costly to provide basic services like
"¢ justify its actions by stating that it is too costly and expensive to provide such a basic service as
"¢ justifies its actions by stating that it is too costly to provide such basic services as





Subject Verb Agreement ANSWERS
1.
"¢ The original sentence supplies the plural verb construction "have risen" for the singular subject
"price." Further, the phrase "have risen and will continue to rise" is redundant. Finally, the
original sentence uses the plural pronoun "their" to refer to the singular subject
"management."
"¢ (A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.
"¢ (B) This answer corrects the pronoun issue, but suffers from the lack of agreement between
the subject "the price" and the verb "have risen." This answer choice also retains the
redundant and wordy construction "have risen and will continue to rise."
"¢ (C) CORRECT. This answer replaces the redundant construction "have risen and will continue
to rise" with the more concise "will continue to rise." This change is possible without any loss
of content, since using "will continue to rise" already implies that the price of oil and fuel
components has been increasing to date. Further, this modification resolves the subject-verb
agreement issue in the original sentence. Finally, this answer choice replaces the plural
pronoun "their" with the article "the," thus remedying the original lack of agreement between
the noun "management" and pronoun "their."
"¢ (D) While supplying the appropriate singular verb "has risen" for the singular subject "the
price," this choice is wordy and retains the incorrect pronoun "their" from the original
sentence.
"¢ (E) While resolving the issues of redundancy and subject-verb agreement, this answer uses
the plural pronoun "their" to refer to the singular noun "management."
2.
"¢ The original sentence states that "a higher interest rate is only one of the factors...that
keeps..." The clause "that keeps the housing market from spiraling out of control" is describing
the word "factors." Since "factors" is plural noun and "keeps" agrees with singular nouns, we
need to find a sentence that replaces "keeps" with "keep". Also, "like it did earlier in the
decade" is incorrect. When comparing clauses (i.e., a phrase containing a subject and a verb),
we must use "as" instead of "like." For example, "She sings like her mother" and "She sings as
her mother does" are both correct, but "She sings like her mother does" is not.
"¢ (A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.
(B) CORRECT. This choice remedies the verb agreement issue by using the singular "keep."
It also correctly changes the comparison word from "like" to "as."
(C) This subject-verb issue with "keeps" remains.
(D) The subject-verb issue is remedied, however, the comparison is a faulty one. "Like" is
used to compare two nouns and here the second part of the comparison is "earlier in the
decade." The phrase "it did" is needed here to logically complete the comparison, in which
case, "as" must be used to draw the comparison.
(E) The subject-verb issue is remedied, however, the word "as" should be used instead of
"like."
3.
"¢ This sentence correctly matches the singular subject "Daughters of the American Revolution"
with the singular verb "admits." Note that the subject is the organization (singular) rather than
the many individual "daughters" (plural). "Only" correctly modifies "women who can prove...,"
indicating that neither men nor women without genealogical ties to an American patriot are
admitted as members of the organization.
(A) CORRECT. This sentence is correct as written.
(B) This choice incorrectly matches the singular subject "Daughters of the American
Revolution" with the plural verb "admit."
(C) In this choice, the adverb "only" has been deleted from the sentence, changing the
meaning. The sentence now implies that the organization may admit the people mentioned
(women who can prove lineal descent....) as well as other people not mentioned. The original
intent of the sentence was to indicate the eligibility requirement for membership.
(D) This choice incorrectly matches the singular subject "Daughters of the American
Revolution" with the plural verb "admit."
(E) In this choice, the adverb "only" modifies "from a patriot of the American Revolution,"
nonsensically indicating that to be eligible for membership in the organization, women can
have no ancestors other than a single patriot.
4.
"¢ The primary issue with this question is subject-verb agreement. The subject is "consumption,"
which is singular (and note that "consumption" is not underlined, so the subject will
be singular in the correct answer). Any verbs associated with this subject, therefore, also
must be singular. In the original sentence, they are both plural ("trigger" and "cause").
"¢ (A) This choice is incorrect because it repeats the original sentence.
"¢ (B) Although this sentence makes two changes from the original sentence, neither one
fixes the subject-verb agreement problem; the singular subject, "consumption," is still paired
with two plural verbs, "trigger" and "cause."
"¢ (C) CORRECT. This choice correctly pairs the singular subject, "consumption," with two
plural verbs, "triggers" and "causes."
"¢ (D) This sentence corrects the first of the two verbs ("triggers") by making it singular to match
the singular subject, "consumption," but the second verb ("cause") is still plural.
"¢ (E) This sentence corrects the second of the two verbs ("causes") by making it singular to
match the singular subject, "consumption," but the first verb ("trigger") is still plural.
5.
The "government," the singular subject of the underlined clause, requires the singular verb "justifies"
and the singular pronoun "its." Additionally, since "medical care and schooling" are examples of
services, they should be delineated by "such as" rather than "such like."
(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.
(B) This choice incorrectly uses the plural pronoun "justifies" to refer to government. Additionally, it is
redundant to state "too costly and expensive."
(C) The plural verb "justify" and the plural pronoun "their" incorrectly refer to the singular
"government." Also, basic services "like" medical care and schooling is unidiomatic.
(D) The plural verb "justify" incorrectly refers to the singular "government." Additionally, "too costly
and expensive" is redundant, and medical care and schooling are two services rather than "a service."
(E) CORRECT. The singular subject "government" is properly accompanied by the singular verb
"justifies" and the singular pronoun "its." Furthermore, the phrase "such basic services as medical care
and schooling" is idiomatically correct.