... (S) owning and living ... (V) is ... (Mod) a goal ... of young adults, like that of earlier generations.


(A) like that of earlier generations
(B) as that for earlier generations
"that" is used to compare two different things, we need to use "it" to compare the antecedent "owning and living" to itself.

(C) just as earlier generations did
Not parallel to first clause, makes no sense... what did earlier generations do?

(D) as have earlier generations
Not parallel to first clause

(E) as it was of earlier generations
Parallel to first clause,
"owning and living" = it
"is" = was
"a goal" = (omitted)
"of young adults" = of earlier generations

What you are saying is clearly logical and correct. When a subject consists of a list constructed via the use of "and," such as "the wolf and the bear," that subject should be paired with a plural verb.

So, what's going on in the sentence in this question?

What's going on is that the writer has taken some poetic license and is considering "owning and living in a freestanding house on its own land " a single thing, a single goal,as in, "What is your goal?" "My goal is to own and live in a freestanding house on its own land."

You can see that this stance makes some sense, as it doesn't really make sense to say that this person has two separate goals, owning a house and living in it.

So, whether the use of a singular verb or the use of a plural verb makes more sense is not clearly defined, and the writer has made the call that using a singular verb in this particular case makes more sense.

Now, you can use this example to enhance your SC performance, because, while in this case, the debatable choice of verb appears in the non-underlined portion of the sentence, in other questions, such questionable use of language can appear in OAs. So, by seeing that a somewhat nonstandard use of language might be considered acceptable, you may keep yourself from eliminating choices that SC question writers feel are, while sketchy or debatably wrong, the best.
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