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DYNAMITE
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 07 Jun 2011, 06:43
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E
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Difficulty:

15% (low)

Question Stats:

74% (00:40) correct 26% (00:54) wrong based on 82 sessions

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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent polls, believes that character is the first consideration in assessing the worth of a politician.


A believes that character is the first

B believes that character is first a

C believes that character is at first

D believe that character is at first

E believe that character is the first


Is the subject singular or plural and WHY?



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E
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agdimple333
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 07 Jun 2011, 08:49
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The subject is plural - 'one third of registered voters'... so verb should be 'believe'

Answer E.
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DYNAMITE
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 07 Jun 2011, 08:56
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Can you explain what is wrong with my thinking then:

of is a preposition, thus what follows it is the object. So the actual subject is one-third and "of registered voters" serves as a prepositional phrase which acts an adjective.
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agdimple333
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent Updated on: 07 Jun 2011, 09:51
Originally posted by agdimple333 on 07 Jun 2011, 09:35.
Last edited by agdimple333 on 07 Jun 2011, 09:51, edited 1 time in total.
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DYNAMITE
Can you explain what is wrong with my thinking then:

of is a preposition, thus what follows it is the object. So the actual subject is one-third and "of registered voters" serves as a prepositional phrase which acts an adjective.
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yes that is correct and you have to refer the object of the preposition. So in the above, object is 'registered voters' , so we chose 'believe' to agree in subject-verb pair.

Consider following additional examples -

One third of the city is employed.
One third of the people are employed.
75% of the icecream is over.
75% of the icecreams are over.
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 07 Jun 2011, 09:46
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DYNAMITE
Can you explain what is wrong with my thinking then:

of is a preposition, thus what follows it is the object. So the actual subject is one-third and "of registered voters" serves as a prepositional phrase which acts an adjective.
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Yes, this is an exception to the rule.

If we have something that is showing us the count/number before "of the noun" prepositional phrase, the verb must agree with the noun as nicely explained by agdimple333 earlier.
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 14 Jun 2011, 07:39
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Tricky one. If you look closely the subject is plural "voterS" and not "one third", which is singular. So E is correct.
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 14 Jun 2011, 08:33
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+1 E

When we talk about fractions or percentages, the number of the noun after "of" is what really matters.
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 14 Aug 2011, 06:01
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this, my friend, is NOT a 700+ level question.
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MBAhereIcome
this, my friend, is NOT a 700+ level question.
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I agree.........impossible. is not a 700 level question
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 27 Dec 2011, 08:09
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+1 E
below 600
20 secs to destroy.
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acdbe2003
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Fully one third of registered voters, according to recent 27 Dec 2011, 20:11
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Clearly E
S-V agreement and the first better than at first



Archived Topic
Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
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