Bunuel wrote:
Many political insiders now believe that the dissension in Congress over health issues
decrease the likelihood for significant action being taken this year to combat the rising costs of healthcare.
A. decrease the likelihood for significant action being
B. decrease the likelihood that significant action will be
C. decrease the likelihood of significant action to be
D. decreases the likelihood for significant action being
E. decreases the likelihood that significant action will be
Project SC Butler
For SC butler Questions Click HereOFFICIAL EXPLANATION
As you read the sentence for the first time, run through your mental checklist. Is there a pronoun, a modifying phrase, a list of several things, a series of parallel actions, or a change in tense? Not this time. Let’s check for subject-verb agreement. The subject of the independent clause is “insiders” and the correct verb, “believe,” follows almost immediately, so there’s no problem in the main clause.
However, let’s look at the dependent clause that follows: “that the dissension in Congress over health issues decrease the likelihood.…”
In this clause, the subject is “dissension,” not “health issues.” Remember to imagine that there are parentheses around any prepositional phrases, as if the clause looked like this:
…the dissension (in Congress over health issues) decrease…
Is this correct? No, the singular “dissension” needs the singular verb “decreases.” Looking at the answers, we can immediately eliminate choices A, B, and C. Now let’s examine choices D and E. Both fix the subject-verb error, but choice D uses the unidiomatic expression “likelihood for,” and it also uses “being” instead of “will be.”
The correct answer is choice E _________________