LevanKhukhunashvili wrote:
Hi experts
GMATNinja daagh generisI have one question regarding option B
(B) the number of women who are in state legislatures have grown"
Guys above stated that plural "are" and "have grown" are incorrect as "The number" is singular.
Per my understanding plural verbs are ok there, because we have "who" and that pronoun makes "women" as a subject, requiring plural verbs
I think the reason why B is incorrect is the meaning, after introducing "who" we have that "women have grown in every election"
Please tell me a couple of words about my reasoning
Cheers
L
I think I see where you're coming from...
In choice (B), we definitely need a plural verb after the "who" because "women" is plural ("women who ARE," not "women who is").
You're right to say that it doesn't make sense to pair the verb "have/has grown" with women, since the thing that has grown is the NUMBER of women, not the women themselves (unless we're talking about a bunch of women in Wonderland eating special cookies/cakes/mushrooms!).
We could certainly have something like this:
- "The number of women who have grown after eating special cookies in Wonderland..." - because "women" is plural, the verb after "who" must also be plural.
But we still need a verb for the main subject ("number"), and that main verb has to be singular, i.e.:
- "The number of women who have grown after eating special cookies in Wonderland HAS increased significantly ever since directions to Wonderland became available on Google Maps." - the main subject ("number") needs a singular verb ("HAS increased").
The "who" clause in choice (B) is just a modifier that gives us more information about the women. If we strip out that modifier, we have, "... the number of women have grown." That doesn't work because the main subject ("number") needs a singular verb ("HAS grown").
I hope that helps!