GMATMadeeasy wrote:
Out of the public’s interest in the details of and conflicts in other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing “regular” people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.
1. other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing
2. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing
3. another person’s life has grown a booming market for a “reality” television show that is bringing
4. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that is bringing
5. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that bring
Which one is the correct answer and why ?
This one of very good hard level questions. Answer debate is between 3 and 4 (C and D) to make it simpler, rest all looks obvious.
i.e. Subject "Out of the public’s interest " is singular so "has" .. "increasing frequency" means it has to be progressive tense so E is out.. debate between C and D ..
Since the "Booming Market" is the thing that is growing, "Has" is the correct verb. (A) can be eliminated. And, "another person's life" doesn't make much sense, unless one person (Kim Kardashian?) is on ALL reality TV. That rules out (C)
(B), (D), and (E) are all very similar to one another, but the verb following the word 'that' is different. 'that' introduces a modifier for the noun or noun-phrase preceding it. Here is where it gets tricky. "That are bringing" and "that bring" both include a plural verb. So each of these phrases modifies a plural noun: "television shows." However, (D)'s "that is bringing" is singular, meaning it modifies the singular preceding noun-phrase, "a booming market for television shows."
So what makes the most sense? Well, in (B) and (E), there is a booming market for a specific type of show: {{shows that bring/are bringing "regular people" onto the television screen with increasing frequency}}. This doesn't actually make sense! It means that there is no market for a show that has ALWAYS had real people on it, but only for shows that USED to have actors but NOW have more real people. This is clearly illogical.
On the other hand, in (D), the market is bringing real people to TV. The meaning here is clear--reality TV shows are appearing in new time slots BECAUSE of this market, which is causing this change. Since (D) is the only sentence with a logical meaning, it is the correct answer.