Subject-Verb Agreement

[BTGmoderatorRO]

According to industry analysts, the recent growth in the number of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas are likely to accelerate in the future.

A. the number of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas are
B. the numbers of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas are
C. the number of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas is
D. the numbers of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas is
E. hybrid motor vehicles' numbers in major metropolitan areas are

OA is c....
why is option A preferred to option D as the correct answer to this question.

[Vincen]

D is not correct because at the beginning says "the numbers" (plural), and at the end says "is" (singular).

But, I can not see why option D is incorrect. Experts could you help us?

[ErikaPrepScholar]

Hey guys,

A key thing to realize in this question is that the phrase "in the number of hybrid motor vehicles in major metropolitan areas" describes the word "growth". This means that "growth", not "number" is the subject of our sentence. We can simplify our sentence a lot by cutting out the descriptive phrase

According to industry analysts, the recent growth ... are likely to accelerate in the future.

This makes it much easier to see that our plural verb, "are", does not match our singular subject, "growth". We can eliminate A, B, and E for using "are".

To decide between C and D, we need to choose between "number" and "numbers". Unfortunately, this comes down to an idiom issue: it isn't idiomatic to say "the numbers of ____" - we're always going to say "the number of ____" (ex: "Over the next few hours, the number of people at the event increased." or "The adoption event put a dent in the number of animals at the shelter."). It's a good idea to have this one memorized so you don't have to rely on your ear on the test. We can eliminate D and pick C.