Out of a growing pride in the region's pre-automotive achievements

tricky one indeed...
IMO B
b) has developed a committee for the preservation of Detroit's landmarks and artifacts that is creating
has and is - correct tense for "achievements.

This is so similar to the Official question that I came across some time back: Out of America's fascination with all things antique have grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that are bringing back the chaise lounge, the overstuffed sofa, and the claw-footed bathtub.

Yes, subject-verb flip is a trap that GMAC uses occasionally. Our familiarity with the normal order of subject preceding verb may mislead us into identifying the subject wrongly. In majority of such cases the other contending (but wrong) subject(s) would generally be within a prepositional phrase before the verb.

In this case, the other contenders "pride" and "achievements" are within a prepositional phrases starting with "Out of...".

In the OG case you mentioned, the other contenders "fascination" and "all things antique" are within a prepositional phrases starting with "Out of...".

Hi mikemcgarry,
Could you please elaborate more about this? What would the normal sentence looks like?
I still can't follow how to reach such conclusion as I am having a problem with the re-inverted sentence,especially the placement of "that".

Thanks

Dear sleepynut,

I'm happy to respond. I must confess, I am not sure exactly what you are asking.

The OA has somewhat unusual word order, a word order typical of more sophisticated writing.
Out of a growing pride in the region’s pre-automotive achievements has developed a committee for the preservation of Detroit’s landmarks and artifacts that is creating monuments and museums across the city.
Notice that every before the verb is a series of prepositional phrases. There's no legitimate candidate for the subject, no freestanding noun, until we get to the word "committee." Thus, the word "committee" must be the subject.

Notice that "committee" is the only freestanding noun in the sentence until the word "that." You have to have the ability to set aside prepositional phrases and see the core grammatical structure of a sentence:
Out of a growing pride in the region’s pre-automotive achievements has developed a committee for the preservation of Detroit’s landmarks and artifacts that is creating monuments and museums across the city

This is a "normal" sentence, normal for sophisticated writing.

My friend, it seems you are looking for clear rules you can use, and to master sentences of this sort, you need to develop the habit of reading.
Does all this make sense?
Mike

thank you for your explanation. it seems to be a new knowledge to me. the sad thing is I still don't understand the meaning of the sentence. could you please paraphrase it in a more straightforward way.

Hi Mike,

Happy new year

The question above seems modeled after the following official question. I usually notice that Veritas tries to mimic the OG questions. It seems that GMAT test makers sometimes use colloquial language.

Out of America’s fascination with all things antique have grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that are bringing back the chaise lounge, the overstuffed sofa, and the daw-footed bathtub.

(A) things antique have grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that are bringing
(B) things antique has grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that is bringing
(C) things that are antiques has grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that bring
(D) antique things have grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that are bringing
(E) antique things has grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that bring

Dear hongson1706,
I'm happy to respond.

Here's the OA, version (B).
Out of a growing pride in the region’s pre-automotive achievements has developed a committee for the preservation of Detroit’s landmarks and artifacts that is creating monuments and museums across the city.
This sentence has a great deal of information. I am going to paraphrase it as two sentences:
(1) A committee for the preservation of Detroit’s landmarks and artifacts has developed out of a growing pride in the region’s pre-automotive achievements.
(2) This committee is creating monuments and museums across the city.

Understanding this sentence relies a bit on the real-world knowledge that, for over half a century, the US city of Detroit was the epicenter of American automobile manufacturing. At one time, I believe more cars were manufactured in this region than anywhere else in the world. In the 1970s & 1980s, Japan & Korea began to introduce exceptionally high quality cars into the American market, and the American automotive industry declined because it wasn't prepared to compete. Detroit, once a very prosperous city, for decades has been impoverished and struggling to re-establish itself.

This sentence is saying that folks in Detroit are starting to have pride in what the city was before the rise of the auto industry, the city's "pre-automotive achievements." Because the citizens of Detroit have this pride, they want to preserve the historical "landmarks and artifacts" from the period before the rise of the auto industry. Presumably at first, just a few people were excited about protecting the past, but the excitement and interest spread and developed, and one product of this development was the formation of a committee. This committee, in a formal way, is trying to protect all the historical markers that have captured people interest. In order to do this, it is "creating monuments and museums across the city."

Now, my friend, I am going to say two important things to you.

First of all, if all this information about Detroit and the American auto industry is 100% new to you, then you have some homework to do. If you want to be successful in the business world, you need to have a sense of where the centers of industry and manufacturing for different products have been and are now. From what countries do we get food, cars, computers, medicines, etc. etc. A good way to build this sense is to read the business news every single day. You see, the any GMAT question may depends on some background knowledge such as this: you don't have to be an expert in any one industry, but you have to have a rough idea of the lay of the land. Furthermore, think about your interview at business school or your first year there. If someone makes a reference to "Detroit's years of success," and you have no idea that this refers to cars, you may look uninformed. The more you can follow such connections, the more sense you will make of the larger economy. The great business minds are the ones who can keep many facets of the big picture always in mind when they are making decisions.

Also, this is sophisticated sentence in its grammatical structure. How do you practice mastering sophisticated sentence structure? By cultivating a habit of sophisticated reading every single day. This would be another advantage of reading the business news every single day in English: it will give you vital information and it will build your language comprehension skills. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

My friend, I want to see you be as successful as you possibly can be. Best of luck, and let me know if you have any further questions.

Dear Mo2men,

Happy new year to you, my friend! Kudos to you for finding a matching question in the OG! That's superb!

You know, my opinion of this has softened over time. It is definitely unconventional. When I first read it, it seemed colloquial, but upon reflection, I realize that it is essentially the same as many other sentences I have seen in sophisticated writing--including this example from the OG. That's the wonderful thing about language: there are some many extraordinary different ways to use it.

Best of luck in the new year!
Mike

This question highlights another clever GMAT tactic to throw you off the scent of subject-verb agreement: It inverts the subject and verb. “…has developed a committee” is akin to saying “so am I” instead of “I am, also.” Stylistically, many constructions allow for the subject to follow the verb. In this case, recognize that both logic and modifier elimination should direct you to the true subject.

“Out of a growing pride” leads with a preposition (“out of”) and therefore functions as a modifying phrase. It describes why the committee has developed. You could just as easily flip the sentence around:

A committee has developed out of a growing pride in the region’s pre-automotive achievements….

So the main subject in this sentence is “a committee.” This allows you to eliminate answer choices A, D, and E, as you cannot say “a committee have developed….” For answer choices B and C, the only remaining decision point is between “create,” which is a plural verb in the present tense, and “is creating,” which is a singular verb in the present continuous tense. To make that decision, you must decide what noun is commanding that verb and whether it is singular. The best way to answer that question is with simple logic. What is doing the creating? The committee. Since committee is singular, the correct answer choice is B, which contains the proper “is creating.”

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