Much work performed by small business owners, like managing human rela

Whats the source of this question? Like in gmat is always used to compare nouns never to introduce examples.

Much work performed by small business owners, like managing human relations, keeping track of accounts, and paying taxes, which are essential to its successful operation, have gone virtually unnoticed by their employees.

(A) which are essential to its successful operation, have gone virtually unnoticed by their employees. (Work is singular)
(B) which are essential to successful operations, have gone virtually unnoticed by their employees. (Same as A)
(C) which is essential to its successful operation, have gone virtually unnoticed by its employees. (Same as A)
(D) which are essential to successful operation, has gone virtually unnoticed by their employees. (Correct)
(E) which are essential to successful operation, has gone virtually unnoticed by its employees. (Small business owners are plural. So usage of its is wrong)

Kudos please if you like my explanation!

Answer Choice B)

Much work x,y and z Plural
Hence plural verb " which are essential"

And plural verb have gone unnoticed .

Their correctly refers to Business owners.


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Is "which" used correctly here? Shouldnt "which" always refer to a noun, and not a clause? In this case, Which should refer to `work` so shouldnt it be `which is essential`?

This does'nt seem like GMAT question. especially on using like and on the structure of the question itself. What is the source?

"much" work is singular....
usage of which? It cannot refer to a noun...but how is it doing here...
like is used to give examples...
SV Agreement is not clear...
Out of consistency and meaning I marked B. But due to SV it is not correct

I have a feeling that D is not correct. Here which refers to 'much work' and acts as the subject of the next clause. Now option D states which are, meaning 'much work' is plural, but then says has gone, meaning the same 'much work' is singular. It contradicts itself as to whether much work is singular or plural.

mitrakaushi
their can't refer to much work
B) Much work performed by small business owners, like managing human relations, keeping track of accounts, and paying taxes, which are essential to successful operation, has gone virtually unnoticed by work employees. - If we substitute "work" in place of their , it is not making sense.

B) Much work performed by small business owners, like managing human relations, keeping track of accounts, and paying taxes, which are essential to successful operation, has gone virtually unnoticed by small business owners employees. - Now its making sense.

Red colored portions are the incorrect part.
So, the answer is D.
Correct me if I am wrong.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The underlined portion contains several agreement errors, and your job is to locate and fix all of them. To accomplish this task, isolate the three main elements of this sentence:

» The subject is work. None of the other nouns or pronouns or noun phrases in the sentence can be the main subject because they’re all either objects (owners, managing, keeping, paying, relations, accounts, taxes, operation, employees) or subjects of dependent clauses (which).
» The main verb is have gone. The other verb (are) belongs to the dependent clause, so it can’t be the main verb.
» The third element is unnoticed.

So the essential sentence states that work have gone unnoticed. Well, that doesn’t sound right! You know you have to change the verb to the singular has to make it agree with the singular subject work. Eliminate any answer choices that don’t change have to has, which leaves you with Choices (D) and (E).

You’ll notice that both Choice (D) and Choice (E) contain the verb are. So the pronoun which must refer back to managing, keeping, and paying (which, together, are plural), so the verb that corresponds to which has to be plural, too. Also, both choices eliminate its before successful operation because it’s unclear what its refers to.

The difference between the two choices is that Choice (E) changes their to its. Ask yourself which noun the pronoun before employees refers to. Who or what has the employees? The only possibility is business owners, which is a plural noun. So the pronoun that refers to it must also be plural. Their is plural; its is singular. Therefore, Choice (D) is the best answer: Much work performed by small business owners, like managing human relations, keeping track of accounts, and paying taxes, which are essential to successful operation, has gone virtually unnoticed by their employees.

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