A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefi

A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans.

A. have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans (A recent spate singular)
B. have done little to convince their practitioners to follow more traditional weight-loss plans (same as A)
C. has done little to convince its practitioners to follow more traditional weight loss plans (its has no antecedent, if were that would be reports, which is plural)
D. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets to follow more traditional weight-loss plans- (Correct)
E. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans- ( A disaster, They has no antecedent, "Should" is not necessary, They should follow... Is an independent clause)
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The big difference between C and D is that C has no actual antecedent so D is correct

D

The issue with option C is that it implies the practitioners belong the recent spate of news reports. The pronoun "it" cannot be taken by "a recent spate of news" and there has to be a proper antecedent.

D

A recent spate of news reports is a singular subject as we know that noun in prepositional phrase can not be the subject of the sentence
A its is ambiguous i.e it can refer to diets or A recent spate of news reports
B their is also ambiguous
C its is ambiguous
D is correct
E that should come after diets and this sentence is long whereas D is succinct and does the job in less words

Would you explain what is antecedent?
Sorry for bothering

The issue with using "its" is essentially the lack of a logically correct antecedent. The boy, despite having assumed the worst soon found out that he got into Yale. The term "the boy" is the antecedent, to which the pronoun "he" refers to. The issue with using "it" is that the "recent spade f news reports" would have to be the antecedent...but you have to ask yourself how can a recent spate of news reports own a set of practitioners? It's practitioners? Whose practitioners? See what I'm saying?

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1)A and B has subject verb agreement
2)in C its has no clear referent.
3)in D should means moral obliged and it is bit wordy.

A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans.

A. have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans
B. have done little to convince their practitioners to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
C. has done little to convince its practitioners to follow more traditional weight loss plans
D. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
E. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans

Can anyone explain the answer? Thanks.

A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans.

A. have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans - spate of new reports - singular ---> has to be "HAS"
B. have done little to convince their practitioners to follow more traditional weight-loss plans - same as B
C. has done little to convince its practitioners to follow more traditional weight loss plans - to what "its" refers is unclear - is it spite, diets, or? Eliminate
D. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets to follow more traditional weight-loss plans - Correct - as we can see, instead of "its" "these diets" - now it is clear
E. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets (that) they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans -without that we have not sentence

Frankly speaking i am not sure, what option would be better, if in E was "that".
It is not the case here. But maybe experts will say?

This question has subject verb agreement error. Since a recent spate is the subject, has should be used and not have. Hence we are left with C,D and E. In C its cannot refer to the diets and hence the usage is wrong. In E convince should be followed by an infinitive or that. Hence answer is D.

A. have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans
B. have done little to convince their practitioners to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
C. has done little to convince its practitioners to follow more traditional weight loss plans
D. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
E. has done little to convince practitioners of these diets they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans

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KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Step 1: Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors
Note the verb in the beginning of the underlined portion. Here the GMAT is testing a common error
in a classic way: The test is assessing your ability to determine correct subject-verb agreement by
placing the subject as far as possible from the verb to disguise the error. The singular subject of the
sentence, “spate,” does not agree with the plural verb “have.”

Step 2: Scan and Group the Answer Choices
Even if you didn’t notice the subject-verb error, seeing the 3-2 split between “has” and “have,” you
should get the sense that subject-verb agreement is at issue here.

Step 3: Eliminate Choices Until Only One Remains
The actual subject of the sentence is “spate,” which is singular, so (A) and (B) are out. Reading
further, (C) is wrong because “its” is singular while the pronoun’s antecedent, “diets,” is plural. (D)
is the correct answer because “convince practitioners . . . to follow” is idiomatically correct, whereas
“convince practitioners . . . they should follow” is not. If (D) sounded better to you than (E), you
should learn to trust your ear on GMAT Sentence Correction questions.

Hello Team,

I understand that 'practitioners of these diets' is better than 'its practitioners'.
But why 'a recent spate of new reports' cannot have verb 'have'.
When I was analyzing this question, I treated 'spate of' same as 'variety of'/ 'majority of'.. in which noun after 'variety of'/ 'majority of' will take care of whether we need to go with plural or singular verb.But here I guess it is not the case.

Please let me know where i ma lacking iun my understanding...

Hello, Vkat. The issue seems to be a misinterpretation of the word spate. The context of the sentence suggests something along the lines of flood, as in, A recent flood of news reports... In other words, the word does not convey anything about a variety or majority. There have simply been a lot of news reports on the topic in question lately. In fact, you can apply the same flood interpretation to an actual weather event to appreciate the need for a singular verb agreement:

A recent flood of epic proportions has devastated the region.

Getting back to the original question, note that the shell of the sentence makes all the difference. If the sentence did say something such as a lot, then have would be more appropriate:

A lot of recent news reports questioning the long-term benefits of high-fat diets have...

In the earlier sentence with spate, the flood or influx of reports was the focus—the increase itself; in the sentence above, the number of such reports is the focus, which is why we would conjugate the verb with the object of the preposition—reports—instead.

Perhaps that clarifies the matter. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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