Sentence Correction

Until recently, trade flows were of interest mainly to economic experts and executives of large corporations, but since the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries have become the subject of intense public attention all over the world.

A. since the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries have become
B. the movement of goods and services across national boundaries since the past few years became
C. the movement across national boundaries of goods and services over the past few years have become
D. over the past few years, the movement across national boundaries of goods and services are becoming
E. over the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries has become

OA:[spoiler]A

[/spoiler]

To get this one right, you could start by considering meaning.

(A) In this choice, since the past few years does not make sense. Since basically means after. The events being discussed did not happen after the past few years. How could they? The past few years basically ends in the present.

(B) This one also has since the past few years.

(C) This one correctly uses over the past few years, but can easily be eliminated on the basis of the obvious issue that the singular noun, movement, is paired with plural verb, have.

(D) Tricky tricky. Now movement is paired with plural verb are.

(E) This one correctly uses over the past few years and uses singular has with movement.

The correct answer is E.

Thanks Marty for the explanation.

I took the 'and' in the sentence "...the movement of goods and services..." and thought that was plural. But the subject of the sentence is movement.

Plus, had I been clear in the meaning of the word since, I would have chosen the answer choise A.

NandishSS wrote:Until recently, trade flows were of interest mainly to economic experts and executives of large corporations, but since the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries have become the subject of intense public attention all over the world.

A. since the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries have become
B. the movement of goods and services across national boundaries since the past few years became
C. the movement across national boundaries of goods and services over the past few years have become
D. over the past few years, the movement across national boundaries of goods and services are becoming
E. over the past few years, the movement of goods and services across national boundaries has become

OA:[spoiler]A

[/spoiler]

I think the OA is E here.

The first point of elimination is the subject -verb agreement.
Here the subject is the "movement", which is singular.
Hence we need a singular verb.

Eliminate options A, C and D

Coming to Option B: This has a flaw in the meaning - the movement is still the subject of public attention, hence present perfect tense is needed

Correct Option: E