collective noun question

This topic has expert replies
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 462
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:08 pm
Thanked: 10 times
Followed by:4 members

collective noun question

by confuse mind » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:15 pm
Due to the highly sensitive nature of the court proceedings, the jury has been sequestered to prevent the leaking of information to the press.

has been sequestered to prevent the leaking of information
have been sequestered to prevent the leaking of information
has been sequestered to prevent them from leaking information
have been sequestered in an attempt to prevent them from leaking information
has been sequestered to prevent the leaks of information from them


The correct answer is A. Please answer the following doubts along-with IMO answers :)

But, here I feel the sentence refers to the individual members of jury and thus we must use have and not have.

Secondly, I find prevent the leaking awkward. It must be prevent them from leaking...


My answer D
Source: — Sentence Correction |

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 1035
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:13 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Thanked: 474 times
Followed by:365 members

by VivianKerr » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:55 pm
"The jury" is a collective noun, like "the group" or "the team", and so takes a singular verb.

"Juries" would be plural. To refer to the members of the jury, the sentence would have to explicitly state that.

Based on subject/verb agreement, B and D can be eliminated.

C cannot be correct because "them" does not refer back to a plural noun (antecedent). Again, we cannot make the inference that "them" is the members of the jury, because the sentence only provides a singular subject "jury." E is eliminated for the same reason. There is no stated antecedent for "them."
Vivian Kerr
GMAT Rockstar, Tutor
https://www.GMATrockstar.com
https://www.yelp.com/biz/gmat-rockstar-los-angeles

Former Kaplan and Grockit instructor, freelance GMAT content creator, now offering affordable, effective, Skype-tutoring for the GMAT at $150/hr. Contact: [email protected]

Thank you for all the "thanks" and "follows"! :-)

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 163
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:56 am
Location: Philadelphia
Thanked: 13 times
Followed by:4 members
GMAT Score:660

by chendawg » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:10 pm
Well first of all, this sentence uses "due to" incorrectly. "Due to...." must modify a noun, and the way it's written in all of the choices, the jury is modified by the "due to" modifier, and that doesn't make sense whatsoever. Therefore I'd question the source of the question.

Second, I don't know why you feel that it's speaking about individual members of the jury; the correct verb must be singular since jury is singular.

Third, the leaking of information is used in everyday English(at least I hear it all the time), and if you want "them" used correctly in a choice, you'd need juries.
I'm not bipolar...I'm bi-winning!!

• Page 1 of 1