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Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the

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Sajjad1994
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Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Jun 2017, 10:31
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A
B
C
D
E

Difficulty:

15% (low)

Question Stats:

69% (00:40) correct 31% (00:40) wrong based on 186 sessions
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Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the passage of the controversial bill.

(A) Neither the council members nor the mayor take

(B) Neither the council members or the mayor takes

(C) Neither the council members take nor the mayor takes

(D) Neither the mayor nor the council members takes

(E) Neither the council members nor the mayor takes

Source: Master GMAT
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E
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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Jun 2017, 10:40
Rules concerning neither.. nor are as follows:

1. Verb must agree in number with the subject closer to the verb.
2. Both, the neither and not portions must be grammatical similar.

Option E, corrects both these errors and must be the correct answer.
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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Jun 2017, 11:09
SajjadAhmad wrote:
Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the passage of the controversial bill.

(A) Neither the council members nor the mayor take
(B) Neither the council members or the mayor takes
(C) Neither the council members take nor the mayor takes
(D) Neither the mayor nor the council members takes
(E) Neither the council members nor the mayor takes

Master GMAT

Correct answer must be (E) for the highlighted errors in other options...
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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Jun 2017, 12:00
Imo E
The verb should match the subject that comes after nor.

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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Jun 2017, 18:41
SajjadAhmad wrote:
Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the passage of the controversial bill.

(A) Neither the council members nor the mayor take
(B) Neither the council members or the mayor takes
(C) Neither the council members take nor the mayor takes
(D) Neither the mayor nor the council members takes
(E) Neither the council members nor the mayor takes

Master GMAT


The split here is between take vs takes and idiom usage.

Usage of neither with nor is appropriate idiom
Rule:
When the idiom neither/nor is used the verb takes the closest subject. ie. the mayor has to be subject,therefore takes should be used.

Therefore Option E is correct
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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   31 Oct 2019, 22:35
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Official Explanation

The general rule is that when two distinct words or phrases are joined by the correlatives either . . . or, neither . . . nor, or not only . . . but also, the number (singular or plural) of the word or phrase nearer to the verb determines the number of the verb.

Choices (A) and (D) are wrong for that reason (“mayor take” and “council members takes”).

Choice (B) is wrong because Neither is incorrectly correlated with or (rather than nor).

Choice (C) is wrong because of the insertion of take; in this construction, both neither and nor must be followed by the same part of speech.

The correct answer is (E).
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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink] Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the   21 Oct 2022, 04:31
Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

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Re: Neither the council members nor the mayor take responsibility for the [#permalink]
21 Oct 2022, 04:31
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