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SubjectVerb agreement - Princeton test

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by aimscore » Thu Oct 14, 2010 2:41 pm
hi all,

This question has already been discussed in the BTG forum before, however I am yet to completely understand the soln.



Since John Locke acknowledged authorship of his political works only in a codicil to his will, the period during which the Second Treatise on Government was written has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions.




A
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are


B
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine is


C
have been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine is


D
have been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are


E
are established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, that which is much more difficult to determine is

Ans :A

I am having difficulty in understanding why the verb should be "is" instead of "are"
From the posts I have read, one trick provided to determine the verb is to invert the sentence into a subject verb object form. if the subject is singular, your verb will be too..
If I invert the sentence, I would say that

The personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions are difficult to determine. I would use "are" because there are multiple things which are difficult to determine.

Any explanation is appreciated.
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by vishalj » Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:00 pm
When you see the inverted stmt, you need to find the subject first. Usually in the inverted clause, the subject is in the end. Here the subject is - "the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions" i.e. three clauses, which means taht we have plural subjects. So we need "are". Hence A
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by pesfunk » Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:20 pm
IMO A

"has" needs to be the start as it is referring to "period"...so C and D are ruled out.
Also, "are" is needed in option A at the end because it is referring to multiple elements. namely, "personal reason", "changes", "extent"..there is an and at the last pointing that things are plural.

I hope this helps.



Since John Locke acknowledged authorship of his political works only in a codicil to his will, the period during which the Second Treatise on Government was written has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions.

A
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are


B
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine is
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by aimscore » Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:16 pm
Hi all,

Sorry I typed in the answer. It is actually "B" :(
Can someone pls explain.
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by mundasingh123 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 5:23 am
ROTFL HA HA HA
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by vishalj » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:03 am
"what is much more difficult to determine" is a noun clause. So whether we need "are" or "is" is depended on the choice of noun clause or inverted statement.

Would be interested to see somebody's thought on this.
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by saurabhmahajan » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:44 am
I went for B initially but saw that answer posted was A and everybody supported that answer too, so decided not to post my reply.

Well the reason to choose B was the personal reason which is singular and not personal reasons


Well i dont know i am right or wrong in explaining this
Thanks and regards,
Saurabh Mahajan

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by aimscore » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:24 pm
I apologise once again for the typo.. :(

Saurabh,

Thats exactly my question .
Why should I take into account only one clause - the one which mentions personal reason..I should be taking all three
i.e.
the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise,
the changes he might have made to his first version,
and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions.

and hence use "are"..

Could any instructor/guru pls clarify.

Thanks
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by vishalj » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:33 pm
One thing is clear that it has nothing to do with reasons or reason. This is the structure of the sentence " the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions"

the personal reason (that) Locke wrote the Treatise --> the personal reason + adjective clause

the changes (that) he might have made to his first version --> the changes + adjective clause

the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions --> the extent + prepositional phrase

So these are in parallel. We can't determine the verb form based on just one of the components i.e. personal reason.
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by saurabhmahajan » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:16 pm
aimscore & vishalj,

to be frank i am very weak in explaining the english terms in typical grammatical way, the one vishalj has done very well.

I just look for that special sentence word which is more exactly close to the change required....i am not good at SC and so has derived my own way to minimize my mistakes (not fullproof) but still i have minimized error by 50% at least. I will still try in future to make my explainations more precise.

anyways thanks vishalj and aimscore :-)
Thanks and regards,
Saurabh Mahajan

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by kapur.arnav » Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:30 am
aimscore wrote:hi all,

This question has already been discussed in the BTG forum before, however I am yet to completely understand the soln.



Since John Locke acknowledged authorship of his political works only in a codicil to his will, the period during which the Second Treatise on Government was written has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are the personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions.




A
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are


B
has been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine is


C
have been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine is


D
have been established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, what is much more difficult to determine are


E
are established through a close analysis of Locke's reported activities near the time of publication; however, because no original manuscript has been found, that which is much more difficult to determine is

Ans :A

I am having difficulty in understanding why the verb should be "is" instead of "are"
From the posts I have read, one trick provided to determine the verb is to invert the sentence into a subject verb object form. if the subject is singular, your verb will be too..
If I invert the sentence, I would say that

The personal reason Locke wrote the Treatise, the changes he might have made to his first version, and the extent to which the published version coheres with Locke's intentions are difficult to determine. I would use "are" because there are multiple things which are difficult to determine.

Any explanation is appreciated.

Is should be used beacuse of the usage of much...

read: much more difficult to determine is should be correct not are.... much is used for uncountable nouns while many is used for countable... many of the students are going there...

much of the grain was lost...

much of his effort has gone into this...

Hope it helped!!!
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by niksworth » Sat Oct 16, 2010 5:36 am
Okay, the principle point of contention here is the use of are/is at the end of what is much more difficult to determine.

The core of the sentence is something like the following -

What is much more difficult to determine is/are A, B and C.

The choice of verb depends on the the subject. If the subject is singular, the verb is singular. If the subject is plural, the verb is plural.

Now, what is the subject of the sentence written above?
Ans - The noun clause - What is much more difficult to determine.

The rule is that if we have a clause as a subject of a sentence, the corresponding verb is always singular. That is why the use of the verb is is appropriate here.

Another example -
Liz is a dancer, a cellist and an activist.
Here the subject is Liz, so the verb is corresponds to the singular Liz.

If you want further clarity on this, go through the Thursdays with Ron Lecture, which extensively covers this doubt. In fact I urge you to do so, many of your cobwebs will magically disappear.
https://vimeo.com/11334034
scio me nihil scire
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by aimscore » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:55 am
niksworth,

Thanks so much for providing the link to the video.
It had a lot of useful information :)

All the members on this thread should definitely go through the video..it clarified my doubts on this particular subject-verb agreement problem :)
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by vishalj » Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:59 pm
It was a good topic to review. Thanks for sharing.
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by this_time_i_will » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:10 pm
what clause always takes singular verb.
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