Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly mal

Hey All,

Lots of conversation around this one, but it doesn't look like anyone's taken it apart piece by piece. Let's do that.

This is a tough question, because it is masquerading as a comparison question. I saw a lot of people mention comparison here, and there absolutely is one. However, none of them really compare the way I (and probably you) would like to see it, "Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over those paid in occupations that are predominantly female..." Then we would get the comparison we want. But none of the answers do it, so comparison must not be the issue here. In reality, it's much simpler: this is a straight-forward subject-verb agreement question.

The two important splits are paid/favors, and have/has at the end.

Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.

(A) paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have
PROBLEM: The subject of "have" is "discrimination", which is singular, so we need "has". How do we know it's "discrimination", and not "wages" or "occupations"? Well, if you'd read the MGMAT Sentence Correction guide, you'd know! : ) The subject of a sentence will never be within a prepositional phrase. "in wages paid" is prepositional, as is "in occupations". This means "discrimination" is our subject, which is singular.

(B) paid in occupations that are predominantly make over those that are predominantly female have
PROBLEM: same as above.

(C) that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have
PROBLEM: Because "that" is a relative pronoun, we know that this phrase modifies "wages". This means "wages" must be the subject of "favors", so it should be "favor".

(D) that favors predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female has
PROBLEM: Same as above.

(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has
ANSWER: Correct in all ways.

That's a rough one. Hope that helps!

-tommy