Subject - Verb Agreement

[saranshpuri]

Eating saltwater fish may significantly reduce the risk
of heartattacks and also aid for sufferers of
rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, according to three
research studies published in the New England Journal
of Medicine.
(A) significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and
also aid for
(8) be significantin reducing the risk of heart
attacks and aid for
(C) significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks
and aid
(0) cause a significant reduction in the risk of heart
attacks and aid to
(El significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks as
well as aiding

OA is C

Here Subject eating is singular while reduce and aid are plural Plz explain

[Bill@VeritasPrep]

In this case, "reduce" and "aid" are not plural because you also have the auxiliary verb "may". This works for singular or plural subjects:

He may run the marathon tomorrow.

Students may use the study rooms in the library.

[[email protected]]

Hi saranshpuri,

Bill mentions an important point about the usage of the word "may", so you should store that away for future use.

As it stands, the GMAT tests a consistent set of grammar rules and idioms/style rules, so knowing what those rules are (and how they typically appear) can make answering most SCs a fairly straight-forward process. When I read this SC, I saw 2 things:

1) Modification: the word "significantly" is an "-ly" modifier, which is a grammar rule that you will be tested on. The word "significantly" must be placed next to the word that it's supposed to modify. In this case, it's the word "reduce" - the phrase "significantly reduce" is what we should be looking for. Eliminate B and D.

2) Parallelism: since we're looking at a "list of 2 things", we have to make sure that the 2 things are parallel (they must have the same format). Answer A uses the words "reduce" and "aid", which are parallel, BUT uses the phrase "and also" which is redundant. Eliminate A. Answer E uses the words "reduce" and "aiding", which are not parallel. Eliminate E. Answer C uses "reduce" and "aid"; this is parallel and has no other problems.

Final Answer: C

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[raj44]

Hi Experts,

Can we consider "and" as plural subject here?

Regds

[ceilidh.erickson]

Hi Experts,

Can we consider "and" as plural subject here?

Regds

"And" creates a plural subject only when it is connecting two nouns:

The cat and the dog are friends.

Here, the "and" is connecting two verbs: may reduce and aid.
This is a parallel list of verbs that has a single subject: eating.

[raj44]

Thank you for the clarification Ceilidh. One more question:

I've read on the forums that using "are...ing" is wrong - how can it be corrected?

for eg:- Is the foll sentence wrong?

1. They are working in the factory (I know "they" has no antecedent; please ignore the pronoun error )

Hi Experts,

Can we consider "and" as plural subject here?

Regds

"And" creates a plural subject only when it is connecting two nouns:

The cat and the dog are friends.

Here, the "and" is connecting two verbs: may reduce and aid.
This is a parallel list of verbs that has a single subject: eating.