What is wrong in the given sentence ..!

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airan: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 127; Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 12:28 am; Thanked: 2 times; GMAT Score:710

by airan » Tue May 13, 2008 6:21 am

There is a young man and an older woman at the bus stop.

One of the popular sentence correction book points a mistake in the above sentence but as per my understanding, there is nothing wrong in it.

Can anyone help to explain(with a different reason given in Manhattan) why

"There is a young man and an older woman at the bus stop" is incorrect and

"There are a young man and an older woman at the bus stop" is correct.

Thanks
Airan

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Tue May 13, 2008 6:21 am

VP_Jim: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1223; Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 3:29 pmFollowed by: 15 members; Location: Los Angeles, CA; Thanked: 185 times

by VP_Jim » Tue May 13, 2008 3:24 pm

Hi airan,

The reason why the sentence "There are a young man and an older woman at the bus stop" is correct is because the verb ("are") needs to be plural to refer to multiple subjects (the young man and the older woman).

Hope this helps!

Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep

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ajeet_gupta: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 1; Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 4:41 am

by ajeet_gupta » Wed May 14, 2008 8:13 am

"There is a young man and an older woman at the bus stop"

If you rephrase the sentence,
A young man and an older woman [is/are] at the bus stop.
So if you put is, then it would be incorrect as it would incorrectly mean that only the older woman is on the bus stop.. [..and sentence would be wrong also--plural should be followed by are]

I hope that it lessens the doubt.

Life is an Adventure

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airan: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 127; Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 12:28 am; Thanked: 2 times; GMAT Score:710

by airan » Thu May 15, 2008 1:48 am

Thnx ..! Changing the voice of the sentence helps to find the answer ..!

Thanks
Airan

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