I am confused with the use of one of . For ex : Although

Question

I am confused with the use of   one of  . For ex :

Although  they are crucially important, a person's total calorie intake is only one of the many factors that determine if their weight will increase or decrease.

In this sentence 'determine' takes the plural form because 'one of the many factors' is plural right?

Now in this sentence..

Since 1989, when the Berlin Wall was demolished, one of the most problematic ethnic groups in the reunified Germany, in terms of cultural and economic assimilation, has been the former East Germans, who have had to acclimate to an entirely different political system.

'one of the most problematic ethnic groups' takes the singular 'has been'.

What am i missing here??

Any explanations would be greatly appreciated..

Negative

myEssayReview · Answer

1. Although they are crucially important, a person's total calorie intake is only one of the many factors that  determine e if their weight will increase or decrease.

In the above sentence, the subject is plural( factors) because not one , but all the factors determine i f the weight will increase or decrease . Thus, in spite of the usage "one of" plural form of verb is used.

2. Since 1989, when the Berlin Wall was demolished, one of the most problematic ethnic groups in the reunified Germany, in terms of cultural and economic assimilation, has been the former East Germans, who have had to acclimate to an entirely different political system.

This sentence is referring to only one subject (ethnic group) out of many , so it has taken singular form 'has been'.

I hope it helped.

anordinaryguy · Answer

I understand it is very confusing to differentiate these two cases. However, if you concentrate on intended meaning of the sentence, it will help more often than not.

Although they are crucially important, a person's total calorie intake is only one of the  many factors   that   determine  if their weight will increase or decrease.

In this sentence, presence of 'that' makes 'many factors' (instead of 'only one of the many factors') subject of the sentence.

Since 1989, when the Berlin Wall was demolished,  one of the most problematic ethnic groups  (in the reunified Germany, in terms of cultural and economic assimilation),  has  been the former East Germans, who have had to acclimate to an entirely different political system.

In this sentence, absence of any conjunction word makes 'one of the most problematic ethnic groups' subject of the sentence.

daagh · Answer

I am afraid the choice you have cited for the first sentence is a flawed one. We cannot base a discussion on a wrong choice. What are the other choices or what is the correct choice? For example, what does their refer to? Why is if used rather than the customary whether. Can you please provide these info?

In the second case, the subject is one group of people namely the EGs, the word  one  representing a collective noun, which is considered singular. Therefore, the verb is singular. Please note that there is no restrictive pronoun  that  in the second case as you find in the first choice, the factors  that  determine ; the pronoun  that  stands for the plural factors and hence the verb takes the plural avatar. 
This is as per obedience to the touch rule of the relative pronoun.

anuragbytes · Answer

the correct choice is this 
it is crucially important, a person's total calorie intake is only one of the many factors that determine whether his or her weight will increase or decrease

but here also the one of many factors is plural.
and i thought that pharse "one of" always takes a singular verb
such as "one of the ships has gone down"

Its confusing
can anybody explain?

Marcab · Answer

The million dollar rule:
One of the X that/who Y--->
ONE OF THE "NOUN"(WILL ALWAYS BE PLURAL) + THAT/WHO+PLURAL VERB.
ex-This is one of the questions that are correct.
ONE OF THE "NOUN"(WILL ALWAYS BE PLURAL) + SINGULAR VERB
ex-One of the chairs is broken.

Now just as all other rules have exceptions, the above rule also does.
 Exception 1 -A (COLLECTIVE NOUN ex-group) of Noun(plural) that/who-->ALWAYS SINGULAR
 Exception 2 -i) THE only one of....that/who-->Always singular
 ii) Only one of ........that/who-->Always plural.

The thorough study of this rule itself is capable of increasing your score by 1 point.
Hope that helps.
-s

eaakbari · Answer

Marcab, could you elaborate,
I am not sure if I understood completely

The army of ants are marching forward. - INCORRECT
The army of ants is marching forward. - CORRECT

Have I inferred correct?

Marcab · Answer

See, If you need to simplify this entire rule, then one thing you must note; here we have used prepositional phrase. Honestly speaking, there is nothing to remember here. Just go with the basics of prepositional phrases. prepositional-phrases-clarified-144981.html After going through the above link, you would breeze away through the entire rule. There is nothing to remember it. Let me know if anything remains unclear.

ketanth · Answer

Its a simple rule:

One of the “noun” (always plural) + that/who + plural verb
One of the “noun” (always plural) + singular verb

addict1ve · Answer

Hi Marcab,
The general rule mentioned above totally makes sense...kudos..

Can you help to clarify some details in red above?

Cheers

AvinashN · Answer

Team,

After going through all posts above , can official GMAT Club Member or SME helps to summarize when one should use single and plural form of verb following "one of ...structure" ?

DmitryFarber · Answer

Sure. If "one" is the subject for the verb, then we use a singular verb. However, if one is modified by a plural noun that has its own verb, then we use a plural verb. The problem is that it's not always clear what's actually happening. Consider this pair:

One of my friends is sick.
One of my friends who lives in Philadelphia is sick.

In both cases, it's clear that only one of my friends is sick, so "is" is clearly correct. But what about "lives"? Perhaps I have more than one friend in Philadelphia, so could I say "One of my friends who live in Philadelphia is sick." Logically, this seems okay, but I don't think a fluent speaker of English would ever produce this sentence. We'd always keep "who lives" modifying the whole noun phrase "one of my friends" and therefore use the singular.

There are many other cases in which we generally avoid the plural, even though it works in theory. This usage is simply idiomatic:

This is one of the things that bothers me about warm weather.  (We wouldn't usually say "This is one of the things that bother me," even though that actually makes more sense. Hey, I never said English was logical! :D )

Timing is one of the factors that really makes a difference in your performance.   (We might use "make" here, which would bring us close to the originally-posted example, but it's clear either way.)

So when  do  we use the plural? When we must! Typically, this is when we are clearly talking about all the elements that the "one" is pulled from.

The guitar part is only one of the many elements that comprise the composition.  Here, the emphasis is not on the guitar part, but on all of the elements, so the singular doesn't work.

The liver is one of the organs that protect your body.   Again, we are stressing that one thing is part of a larger group, while in the earlier examples we were emphasizing the importance of one particular item in a group.

Conclusion? This is an area where English is complicated and sometimes illogical. How will the GMAT handle that? The way it always does--by giving us only one answer that works! We're unlikely to see two answers that hinge on this issue alone. If that does happen, then we have no choice but to default to logic and make sure we know the proper subject for the verb in question. Otherwise, be ready to be flexible and look for more concrete reasons to eliminate each choice!

Skywalker18 · Answer

if you have just ONE OF THE + PLURAL NOUN  +  WHO/THAT  + ______, and it's NOT "the only one",  THEN "____" MUST be a PLURAL VERB. 
zero exceptions.

example:
that's one of the birds that fly over my house at night.

here's the rationale, if you care about reasons: the idea is that there is a whole group of NOUNs (whatever they are) that do ______, and we're singling out one of them.

notice that the RED-COLORED RELATIVE PRONOUN (WHO/THAT) is absolutely crucial here.
if that isn't there - i.e., if "one of the NOUNs" is actually the SUBJECT of the ____ verb - then you take a singular verb instead.
example:
one of the birds flies over the house; the other one flies past it.

--

finally, to complicate things further,  THE ONLY ONE OF THE + PLURAL NOUN + WHO/THAT + ______ requires a SINGULAR verb for the "_____" .
in this case, only one of the NOUNs actually does whatever "_____" refers to, so we stick with the singular verb.

example:
Marina is the only one of the girls who  has  ever been to India.

the following examples are both correct:
(1) he is  one  of the people who  bake  special cakes.
(2) he is  the only one  of the people who  bakes  special cakes.

this actually isn't as hard as pure memorization might make it seem: all you have to do is think about the LITERAL MEANING of what you're writing.
in my #1, there are lots of people who bake special cakes, so "bake" should be plural.
in my #2, the man in question is the ONLY person who bakes special cakes, so the verb should be singular.

--

here's another way to think about it: you can DECONSTRUCT the sentence, and tell exactly which noun / construction the verb "belongs" to. (i have no idea whether this is a formal grammar concept or not, but it works.)

in my #1:
PEOPLE bake cakes. (--> plural "bake")
he is one of them.
(he is not "one who bakes cakes")

in my #2:
there are a bunch of PEOPLE.
he is THE ONE who BAKES cakes. (--> singular "bakes")
(there are not "people who bake cakes")

CAVEAT:
this is one of those things that are RIDICULOUSLY hard to memorize, but is actually pretty easy just to  deduce from context . so, unless you're prepared to memorize a whole lot of easily confused, easily forgotten rules that are extremely subtle, you should just think about the context and go from there.

* for instance, given
X is  only one  of the factors, albeit an important one, that (keep/keeps) the market from spinning out of control
it's clear that there are MANY factors, ALL of which keep the market from doing blah blah blah, and that X is just one of them.
since there are MANY factors keeping...., we should use the plural "keep".

* on the other hand, given
X is  the only one  of the factors that (keep/keeps) the market from spinning out of control
it's clear that there are many factors, but NONE OF THEM EXCEPT X keeps the market from doing blah blah blah.
since X is the ONLY factor keeping...., we should use the singular "keeps".

In 99.9% of these, you'll be able to just think about the context in this way, saving yourself a horrendous amount of time and effort.

(The above answer has been taken from Ron's answer on BTG.)

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I am confused with the use of one of . For ex : Although

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