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joyseychow
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 17 Mar 2010, 02:53
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Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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79% (00:22) correct 21% (00:23) wrong based on 482 sessions

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One of every two new businesses fail within two years.

(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed

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I'm always confused with the "one of" - verb issue. When do we use plural or singular verbs in a sentence involving "one of..."? Can someone pls. explain. Thks!
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B
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nverma
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 17 Mar 2010, 03:07
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joyseychow
One of every two new businesses fail within two years.
(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed


I'm always confused with the "one of" - verb issue. When do we use plural or singular verbs in a sentence involving "one of..."? Can someone pls. explain. Thks!
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Let me try..!!

a)One of every two students is
b)One of every two students who are..

c)One of every two cars is..
d)One of every two cars that are..


So, if we have any referent just before the verb, as in the case b) and d), we use plural verb. Otherwise singular..!!
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achiever01
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 17 Mar 2010, 13:20
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joyseychow
One of every two new businesses fail within two years.
(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed


I'm always confused with the "one of" - verb issue. When do we use plural or singular verbs in a sentence involving "one of..."? Can someone pls. explain. Thks!
Show more

IMO 'B'

"One of the" should be used in the following context:

(1) Subject: Singular

One of the boys has a computer.

(2) Predictive - Plural verb

He is one of the boys who have computer.


Whats OA?
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mustdoit
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 19 Mar 2010, 00:56
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joyseychow
One of every two new businesses fail within two years.
(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed


I'm always confused with the "one of" - verb issue. When do we use plural or singular verbs in a sentence involving "one of..."? Can someone pls. explain. Thks!
Show more


Rule is

One + of + .... is singular

one + of + ..... + who/that is plural

SO answer here is B
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GMATPill
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 12 Nov 2011, 17:00
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lgon
One of every two new businesses fail within two years.
(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed
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The best way to think about this is to remove "new businesses" when you read it to yourself.

So it would be like this:

"one out of 2 fail/fails"

One out of 2 FAILS - that's (B).

So pick (B) and move on.

Hope that helps.
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 25 Jul 2012, 10:43
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jitgoel
One of every two new businesses fail within two years.
(A) fail
(B) fails
(C) should fail
(D) may have failed
(E) has failed
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+1 for (B)

ONE of every two new business FAILS within two years.

"....of every two new business...." prepositional phrase so "ignore the middleman"
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 02 Sep 2012, 11:15
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years.

(A) fail - Incorrect because one is singular and fail applies for plural
(B) fails - Correct
(C) should fail - Incorrect because it's future tense
(D) may have failed - Incorrect because it's past tense
(E) has failed - Incorrect because it's present perfect
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 09 Aug 2020, 02:07
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Could someone please explain why the answer is not (E)?
Thanks
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 24 Oct 2021, 11:09
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azamatboden
Could someone please explain why the answer is not (E)?
Thanks
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Cos, the meaning of the sentence is more like a fact, and we use simple present tense to indicate a fact. It is not a job/task that you have been doing for some time.
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 26 Oct 2021, 00:00
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azamatboden
Could someone please explain why the answer is not (E)?
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Hello azamatboden,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help answer your doubt.

In this question, Option E is incorrect because it uses the present perfect tense verb "has failed" to refer to a statement of fact. What this means is that the sentence does not describe an active action; it conveys information that is, as a rule, true. Consider the following sentence "The moon orbits the Earth."; here, we will not use the simple present continuous tense verb "is orbiting", even though the moon is presently and continuously orbiting the Earth, since this sentence conveys a fact or rule, information that is permanent in nature. Statements of fact and information that is permanent in nature are best conveyed through the simple present tense, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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One of every two new businesses fail within two years. 22 Aug 2023, 12:33
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