nightblade354
Attempts to increase the development projects available to third world countries, a major goal of third world country advocates and many developed countries in the 1980's, has not significantly reduced the gaps existing between the richest and poorest third world countries.
A) has not significantly reduced the gaps existing
B) has not been significant in reducing the gap that exists
C) has not made a significant reduction in the gap that exists
D) have not significantly reduced the gap that exists
E) have not been significant in a reduction of the gaps existing
The question is one based on Subject-Verb agreement and sentence construction.
The first point of elimination is Subject-Verb agreement. If we do a vertical scan of the options, we see that the first words of all the options are either ‘has’ or ‘have’. When the underlined portion begins with a verb, the first point of elimination is either Tense or Subject-Verb agreement.
If the choice had been between ‘has/have’ and ‘had’, it would have been a choice of tense. Since the choice is between the singular form ‘has’ and the plural form ‘have’, we are looking at Subject-Verb agreement.
The subject is far away from the verb in this sentence. If there is any confusion in identifying the verb, we could ask ourselves who/what has/have not significantly reduced the gaps… Though there are a number of nouns in between the subject and the verb, the answer to this question would be that “Attempts to increase” have not significantly reduced the gaps. So, we can eliminate
Options A, B, and C, as they begin with the singular form ‘has’ and not the required plural form ‘have’.
Between Options D and E, the construction of E is wordy. ‘Significantly reduced’ is more concise than ‘significant in a reduction’. So,
Option E can also be eliminated.
Therefore,
Option D is the most appropriate option.
Jayanthi Kumar.