If the majority of your opponents have control, you may become defeate

We need "If" to reflect intended meaning.If X happen then Y may/will happen.
So E is out as "and" makes both items equal.

Who is taking control majority or opponents? Its opponent so plural. C & D out.

A Vs B. A is succinct so correct.

please post OA.

subject is Majority here.

B is my choice.

That because majority can be used as a singular word, when it refers to sth abstract (e.g., a majority of votes is needed). But when it is about what makes up a part, then it should be used in plural (e.g. the majority of the voters were opposed...).

Also, answer C is kind of helpful, because it "sounds"wrong. Then it can help you decide whether you need the word majority to be in plural or not.

IMO B...

Here Majority is similar to MOST in meaning so we can consider as "most of your opponents" = plural which helps us easily choose B.

ans A, although it is also not free of errors..

A. If the majority of your opponents have control, you may become defeated.majority sdould have a plural verb-ok; however the second part you may become defeated,could have been better if it was" you may get defeated" or"you may become a loser".. but wait as we will have to come back to this
B. If the majority of your opponents take control, you may lose.although correct grammatically and most likely to be a correct answer, it changes the meaning... it changes the meaning from having control to taking control..
C. If the majority of your opponents assumes control, you may see defeat.singular verb and second part unnecessary wordy so its out
D. If the majority of your opponents has control, you may lose..singular verb so its out
E. Most of you opponents will have control, and you may lose.awkword construction so out
A and B are closest to be answer.... although B is very very tempting, A should win being original meaning

+1 B.

A. If the majority of your opponents have control, you may become defeated. Awkward
B. If the majority of your opponents take control, you may lose. Correct
C. If the majority of your opponents assumes control, you may see defeat. Opponents is plural so it should be "assume"
D. If the majority of your opponents has control, you may lose. Opponents is plural so it should be "have"
E. Most of you opponents will have control, and you may lose. Changes meaning of sentence and removes cause and effect relationship

souvik101990, Please provide OA and OE.

Official Explanation

D. Majority is a collective noun, which may take either a singular or plural verb, depending on whether the group as a whole or the individuals are emphasized. But lose is a clearer and more economical expression than become defeated. Choices B, C, and E change the meaning of the sentence.

We have three choices which say " you may lose" and that phrase is more concise than "you may see defeat or you may become defeated". So A and C are gone.
And I guess pretty much everyone gets this far.



Pretty much everyone eliminated this because of the usage of "will".



As GMATNinja's says, when you are down to 2 and just focus on the difference (too much focus). What could be the possible difference here? take v/s has. The author is saying If the opponents have control then you may lose not "take control". Well if they take control then we are changing the intent here and there is an implicit assumption that you're giving control too. And that is not the case.

Hence D is preferred over B.

P.S: If you're down to 2 options, take a deep breath and figure out. Extra 20 seconds will pay off.

The problem here is that the question is too light on content to allow us to make a meaningful decision between a singular or plural usage of majority. If the idea is that a majority group has control (as in, say, a coalition government), then one could make a case for D. However, normal usage would be to treat majority as plural here. Since there's no information to help us decide, there can be no OA. Note that official GMAT questions never feature vague, decontextualized pronouncements. Grammar and meaning are inextricably linked. We need meaning to make a proper grammar ruling here.

Bunuel, in one of your posts you said the majority always has singular with it and I had commented on the post too. It will be really helpful if you could shed some light here.