Dr. Sayre’s lecture recounted several little-known episodes in the

Singular Subjects, Plural Predicates, etc.

See below or click on the link: https://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ ... #irregular


We frequently run into a situation in which a singular subject is linked to a plural predicate:

E.g. My favorite breakfast is cereal with fruit, milk, orange juice, and toast.

Sometimes, too, a plural subject can be linked to singular predicate:

E.g. Mistakes in parallelism are the only problem here.

In such situations, remember that the number (singular or plural) of the subject, not the predicate, determines the number of the verb. See the section on Subject-Verb Agreement for further help.

A special situation exists when a subject seems not to agree with its predicate. For instance, when we want each student to see his or her counselor (and each student is assigned to only one counselor), but we want to avoid that "his or her" construction by pluralizing, do we say "Students must see their counselors" or "Students must see their counselor"? The singular counselor is necesssary to avoid the implication that students have more than one counselor apiece. Do we say "Many sons dislike their father or fathers"? We don't mean to suggest that the sons have more than one father, so we use the singular father. Theodore Bernstein, in Dos, Don'ts and Maybes of English Usage, says that "Idiomatically the noun applying to more than one person remains in the singular when (a) it represents a quality or thing possessed in common ("The audience's curiosity was aroused"); or (b) it is an abstraction ("The judges applied their reason to the problem"), or (c) it is a figurative word ("All ten children had a sweet tooth") (203). Sometimes good sense will have to guide you. We might want to say "Puzzled, the children scratched their head" to avoid the image of multi-headed children, but "The audience rose to their foot" is plainly ridiculous and about to tip over.

In "The boys moved their car/cars," the plural would indicate that each boy owned a car, the singular that the boys (together) owned one car (which is quite possible). It is also possible that each boy owned more than one car. Be prepared for such situations, and consider carefully the implications of using either the singular or the plural. You might have to avoid the problem by going the opposite direction of pluralizing: moving things to the singular and talking about what each boy did.

I am in favor of C...
I was looking for among in the answer choices, presuming more than 2 nations to be involved, but none of the choices features an "among"...

OA is B.
In GMAT, here are two facts that always hold:
(1) In a prepositional phrase, the noun after the preposition can NEVER be the subject of a sentence.
(2) An attributive clause always describes the CLOSEST subject.

(A) relations between (nations that illustrates)
Wrong. Nations cannot illustrate what is wrong. Their relation can.

(B) relation (of one nation with another) that illustrates
Correct.

(C) relations between (nations that illustrate)
Wrong. Same as A.

(D) relation of one nation with another and illustrate
Wrong. In this sentence the action "illustrate" is sent out by Dr. Sayre. However the tense is incorrect, and it changed the meaning of the sentence.

(E) relations of (nations that illustrates)
Wrong. Same as A, and the verb "illustrates" doesn't follow its subject "nations"

I found the official answer and it was B not C!


1. "nations" are greater than just two. Therefore "between" is wrong. A and C are out.

2. in D, "and illustrate" means that it is parallel with something. But this present tense "illustrate" cannot be parallel with anything.

3. "illustrates" is wrong because it needs to be plural. No matter the subject is "episodes" or "relations".

Can we confirm that OA is B? Seems to be several different answers/explanations?

Could you please confirm the OA for this question? I'm confused because there are so many comments stating that the OA should be B, not C. Thank you.

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