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Subject-Verb agreement

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by gmatisgay » Sun Aug 07, 2011 7:31 pm
Soaring costs for gasoline and oil, the essential resources allowing car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is leading to increased popular support for new government initiatives to develop alternative and renewable energy sources.

A
the essential resources allowing car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is

B
the essential resources used by car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is

C
the essential resources enabling car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is

D
the essential resources enabling car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, are

E
the essential resources used by car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, are

OA is E
But here I thought soaring costs is the SINGLE reason leading to increased popular support for new government initiatives to develop alternative and renewable energy sources. Therefore the verb should be singular, right??

question from Grockit
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by champ0007 » Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:10 pm
All the other choics A C D are ruled out for wrong idiomatic usage

I was also confused between B and E

Though "Soaring Costs" looks like an action noun but we are talking about 2 costs separately here, that of oil and gasoline ... therefore plural verb fits well.
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by garima99 » Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:15 pm
Soaring costs for gasoline and oil, the essential resources allowing car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is leading to increased popular support for new government initiatives to develop alternative and renewable energy sources.

A
the essential resources allowing car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles,is

B
the essential resources used by car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles,is

C
the essential resources enabling car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is

D
the essential resources enabling car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, are

E
the essential resources used by car owners to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, are
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by sunnyjohn » Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:33 pm
Hi gmatisgay,

This is a very simple question if you know one "stopsign". It took me only 12 seconds to solve this question.

Stop Sign - "Whenever you see a long modifier in the middle of a sentence, it must be checking -"Subject-Verb agreement".

Soaring costs for gasoline and oil, the essential resources allowing car owners to be able to fuel and lubricate their automobiles, is leading to increased popular support for new government initiatives to develop alternative and renewable energy sources.

Subject of the sentence: costs ( Plural )

A,B,C - out, because costs is ( WRONG )

Out of D and E -
D: Enabling car owners to be able to
It is eliminated because of redundancy.

This left with E as answer.
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by smackmartine » Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:45 pm
@gmatisgay,

I guess "soaring" tipped you off. Soaring is just an adjective that modifies "costs". Always concentrate on the main subject. "Costs" is the main subject that is plural, and hence are should be the verb .
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by Ozlemg » Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:00 am
"The soar in the costs is" would be correct...
The more you suffer before the test, the less you will do so in the test! :)
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by mundasingh123 » Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:05 am
champ0007 wrote:All the other choics A C D are ruled out for wrong idiomatic usage

I was also confused between B and E

Though "Soaring Costs" looks like an action noun but we are talking about 2 costs separately here, that of oil and gasoline ... therefore plural verb fits well.
Soaring costs is not an action noun . It is adjective + Noun
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