With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

Sentence is checking subject verb agreement .

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract
[Looking AT is better than looking TO , eliminate.]
(B) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract
[Correct and concise ]
(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract
[Subject cleveland (singular) need singular verb IS and not ARE , eliminate.]

(D) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting
[Subject cleveland (singular) need singular verb IS and not ARE , eliminate.]

(E) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract
[Subject cleveland (singular) need singular verb IS and not ARE , eliminate.]

S-V rule.

One of that always usages the plural verb. Therefore, A and B are eliminated. D has 'its' in it, so eliminated. E is wordy. IMO C is correct here.

sanyalpritish wrote:With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(B) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(D) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting

(E) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract

I think there are two versions of the same sentence. For the one in the original post: IMO B

Here is the second version:

With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract
(B) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract
(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract
(D) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract
(E) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting


For this version IMO C.

sanyalpritish wrote:With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(B) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(D) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting

(E) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract

points to remember :

1) looking at something : literally, see something. e.g stare.

looking to : hope / expect something. e.g looking forward to meet you ....

2) take the noun(subject) closest to that to decide between is/are.



point 1 : B and E are eliminated.

point 2 : A and B are eliminated. (communities on the Great Lakes is the subject)

communities is plural and hence, will take their with it. D is eliminated.

pick the one you are left with

hi Harshavardhanc,
i picked B as an option and my reasoning coincides with rockeyb.

one thing , Cleveland is one of a large number of communities on the GL
doesn't 'is one of a large number of' make the subject singular. i.e. Cleveland

or is the subject ' communities on the GL'?

please could someone help me with this with some more examples?
confused!!

harshavardhanc wrote:

sanyalpritish wrote:With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(B) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(D) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting

(E) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract

points to remember :

1) looking at something : literally, see something. e.g stare.

looking to : hope / expect something. e.g looking forward to meet you ....

2) take the noun(subject) closest to that to decide between is/are.



point 1 : B and E are eliminated.

point 2 : A and B are eliminated. (communities on the Great Lakes is the subject)

communities is plural and hence, will take their with it. D is eliminated.

pick the one you are left with

Pdgmat2010 wrote:hi Harshavardhanc,
i picked B as an option and my reasoning coincides with rockeyb.

one thing , Cleveland is one of a large number of communities on the GL
doesn't 'is one of a large number of' make the subject singular. i.e. Cleveland

or is the subject ' communities on the GL'?

please could someone help me with this with some more examples?
confused!!

harshavardhanc wrote:

sanyalpritish wrote:With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

(A) is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(B) is looking at its waterfront to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(C) are looking to their waterfronts to improve the quality of urban life and attract

(D) are looking to its waterfront as a way of improving the quality of urban life and attracting

(E) are looking at their waterfronts as a way they can improve the quality of urban life and attract

points to remember :

1) looking at something : literally, see something. e.g stare.

looking to : hope / expect something. e.g looking forward to meet you ....

2) take the noun(subject) closest to that to decide between is/are.



point 1 : B and E are eliminated.

point 2 : A and B are eliminated. (communities on the Great Lakes is the subject)

communities is plural and hence, will take their with it. D is eliminated.

pick the one you are left with

I think Ron's post will clear your doubts :

https://www.beatthegmat.com/post167563.html#167563

@harshavardhanc -I saw the notes
but one doubt the notes is all about one of the sentences
what we have here is one of a large number of communities do u say both the sentences are same?

OA-C

Guys hold on , first of all @sanyalpritish please can you proof read the sentence once you have posted them , reason is this particular sentence has a lot more underlined than actually necessary and the funny thing is the answer options and the verb after Cleveland both are IS .

So if you are a test taker like me who scans the options vertically , this kind of thing is sure recipe for disaster.

@Harsha I think we need to step back and look at Ron's explanation

the following examples are both correct:
(1) he is one of the people who bake special cakes.
(2) he is the only one of the people who bakes special cakes.

notice the difference between One of the and Only one of the and the effect it has on the verb .

Now lets get back to the original sentence.

With its plan to develop seven and a half acres of shore land, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that is looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

Notice : ONE OF A

The presence of A here makes the subject singular and not plural . If it would have been One of THE i would have agreed that subject is plural.

So I guess the subject is still SINGULAR , Although I agree with Harsha's explanation for Looking AT and looking TO .

But please correct me if I am wrong with One of A and One of THE.

@ Rock : I understand your point, But I can't explain by we are using "Are", doing this question I selected A, which is wrong as per the OA.
If Ron, can explain.

rockeyb wrote: Notice : ONE OF A

The presence of A here makes the subject singular and not plural . If it would have been One of THE i would have agreed that subject is plural.

So I guess the subject is still SINGULAR , Although I agree with Harsha's explanation for Looking AT and looking TO .

But please correct me if I am wrong with One of A and One of THE.

Rocky,

nice work in analyzing this sentence.

But, read Ron's explanation once more ....carefully.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/post167563.html#167563

He says, when the sentence conveys that the noun is one of a/the group and IS NOT THE ONLY ONE.

if you have just ONE OF THE + PLURAL NOUN + WHO/THAT + ______,

and it's NOT "the only one",

THEN "____" MUST be a PLURAL VERB.
zero exceptions.

then who/that takes a plural verb.

Here, Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities. So, the case is same and that will take plural verb.


Pritish,

As far as option A is concerned, look at means that they are literally seeing their waterfronts, and author certainly doesn't want to say that Cleveland and others are staring at their waterfronts.

As always Harsha thanks for explaining mate .

WOW !!!!! that was some thing .

Take away : Look out for relative pronouns WHO/ THAT in cases like these .

Why ? If we remove these are not present in the sentence then ONE of THE / One of A NOUN will be the subject of the verb and that will be singular .

So in the above sentence :

Cleveland is but one of a large number of communities on the Great Lakes that ARE looking to its waterfront as a way to improve the quality of urban life and attract new businesses.

Will take a plural verb ARE and not IS .