A South American bird

[sparsh.21]

A South American bird that forages for winged termites and other small insects while swinging upside down form the foliage of tall trees, the graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are represented in virtually every kind of habitat.

A. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are

B. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is

C. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that include more than 230 species and is

D. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are

E. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is


OA is B

please explain the answer

[Hopper39]

Eliminate D and E because there is no verb between the subject "graveteiro" and the "and" at the end of the underlined section. Eliminating the prepositional phrase "which...230 species", the sentence doesn't read logically.

Eliminate C because of subject/verb agreement. "A group of ... tropical birds..." is singular, so the verb "to include" must also be singular - "includes", not "include".

Eliminate A because of subject/verb agreement. If "A group..." is singular, then the second verb "to be" must also be singular - "and IS", not "and that ARE". The word "species" here is not the subject of "to be".

[piyush_nitt]

A South American bird that forages for winged termites and other small insects while swinging upside down form the foliage of tall trees, the graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are represented in virtually every kind of habitat.

A. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are

B. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is

C. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that include more than 230 species and is

D. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are
- Fragment - Verb missing

E. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is

Fragment - Verb missing

OA is B

please explain the answer

[sparsh.21]

got it thanks !!

[naveenk]

I opened this thread again to clear my doubt.

Why the subject here is "a group" instead of "tropical birds" for verb "includes".

As I know below are correct..
Each one of the cars is red in color ...
Each one of the cars that are red in color ...

The usage of that or which refers to immediate before noun, and the verb following it should agree with that noun..

So this answer should have "include" and not "includes".
Please kindly clarify.

thanks a lot

[maihuna]

A South American bird that forages for winged termites and other small insects while swinging upside down form the foliage of tall trees, the graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are represented in virtually every kind of habitat.

Seeing the second clause explaining graveteiro :
graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group (of New World tropical birds) that (includes more than 230 species) and that (are represented in virtually every kind of habitat).

So two things are being told about this group: species included and kind of habitat, and so they should be in parallel, this parallelism can be in either of two ways: One subordinate clause introduced by that and the two conjugated with an and or parallel that clauses. The option contains each of these varities, and in my opinion, both could be correct depending on the parallelism exhibited in word choice.

Now option A and D tries two parallel that clauses, BCE uses and to show the parallelism under one that clause.

Now all things being equal, the pronoun which is not necessary so kill option D and E as long as we can find some answer in ABC:


A. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group (of New World tropical birds) that includes more than 230 species and that are

So the includes and are are not consistent, if this that is referring to group both should be singular, even if to birds(which is nonsensical in given contet as birds can not posses species, group can),

B. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group (of New World tropical birds) that includes more than 230 species and is


Fine as long as both are singular.

C. graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group (of New World tropical birds) that include more than 230 species and is
Not ok.

D. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are
not ok
E. graveteiro, which belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is
Nothing better than B and B does not have extra pronoun so let B be the option.



Answer:h

[hrishi19884]

Love those illustrations!!!

Great going

[Stacey Koprince]

Received a PM asking me to address this issue:

"I have heard EACH and GROUP takes SINGULAR nouns...

Is it because of "X of Noun THAT " refers to A GROUP ?? "

Unfortunately, I can't find a source listed above (and I can't respond to problems on which a source has not been cited ).

I will discuss this issue very generally, though. When you have a phrase such as "a group of <x>" followed by "that..." then one of two things will happen.

(1) The sentence will tell you which way to go. For example: A group of teenagers that attend the local high school...

The sentence above is telling you that "attend" matches with something plural because "attend" isn't part of the underline. On the GMAT, we don't have to worry about this, because we're not being asked to make a decision about this issue.

(2) The sentence could go either way, in which case the GMAT will not make us decide based upon whether it "should" match with group or teenagers.

"A group of teenagers that attends the local high school and that are" [mis-match: the first verb is singular, the second is plural]

"A group of teenagers that attend... and that are..." [match]

"A group of teenagers that attend... and that is..." [mis-match: plural, then singular]

In other words - on problems like the one above, this issue of "does it match with group or teenagers" is a red-herring (read: there isn't one right way to do this and you should ignore that part). You actually need to worry about parallelism (and sentence fragments, for the other choices).

[A.Kiran]

got it. thanks for all.

I went for the E.

Yeah in E, the verb is missing

[meenakshimiyer]

D and E are instant untouchables because they are fragments. Unnecessary use of comma eliminates them.
We are left with A, B and C. In choice A, the use of "are" in the end is wrong as it refers to a singular noun "graveteiro". It should have been "is".
Choice C could be ruled out as "group" is treated as a singular noun while "include" is a plural verb. So, it violates Subject- Verb agreement. Choice B has correct use of grammar. Hence, B is the answer.

[vietnam47]

collective noun, such as a group of somethingS, is singular by default. but it can take plural verb if the meaning is condidered plural. gmat will not test us this point.

just remember that collective noun can take either plural or singular verb . when we can choose, take singular form, other things equal. but if there is a clear errors in choices with singular verb, choice with plural verb is correct.