The question below is from a "GMAT prep" practice exam from http://www.mba.com. You might not want to look at this question if you have not yet used the GMAT prep exams but intend to do so.














Analyzing campaign expenditures, the media has had as a focus the high costs and low ethics of campaign finance, but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.

(b) Analyses of campaign expenditures by the media has been focused on

(c) In analyzing campaign expenditures, the media have focused on

(d) Media analyses of campaign expenditures have had as a focus

(e) In their analysis of campaign expenditures, the media has been focusing on





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I believe that the OA (c) is a wrong answer choice because "the media have" should be "the media has". "The media" is a singular noun. The MGMAT Sentence Correction book addresses these types of nouns specifically on page 40. The book uses the example of "The crowd is cheering," indicating that "the crowd" is a singular noun. I don't see how the noun, "the media," would be any different.

(a) opening phrase needs some sort of connecting word, such as "In analyzing campaign expenditures". (a) is wrong
(b) subject/verb disagreement between "Analyses" and "has been focused", thus (b) is wrong
(c) OA, but seems wrong for reasons stated above
(d) seems poorly worded with "have had as a focus the high costs...", but appears to be the only grammatically correct choice. I think the right answer is (d)
(e) Again, if "the media" is singular, the reference "their analysis" should be singular ("its analysis"). thus, (e) is wrong


I would really like to know what you all think. Thanks for your input!

Media - plural
medium - singular
like
data -plural
datum singular
Hence c is correct

Thanks everybody, great explanations

One can also apply POE easily here

whether to choose media as singular or plural depends on the context.
if we go through the whole sentence , we can definitely say that media is plural here
but they have generally overlooked the cost of actually administering elections, which includes facilities, transport, printing, staffing, and technology.

So we also have to consider media as plural.

So C is correct