Out of the public’s interest in the details of and conflicts in other

To understand this question in its logical perspective, one needs to appreciate that the shows themselves create the interest by virtue of their sensational nature and therefore people throng to see them. Therefore, it is clear that the shows entice people. Then a demand emerges and the commercial people step in to cash in on the ready-made boom to make easy money. Therefore, the booming market is the end of the chain and not the beginning.
If this tenet is clear, then this can be easily solved. Here the verb has to be plural either -are bringing or a simple present tense bring. It is now the importance of the increasing frequency can be realized. It a frequently changing one means that it is a dynamic factor and an on- going affair. What better way could be there than to describe in a progressive tense—namely, are bringing. Please also note that choice B meticulously abides by the touch rule of relative pronoun. Therefore, B is the best IMO.
Kaplan’ choice of D as the official answer is understandable, considering Kaplan’s fancy for gaining popularity more through controversies than through logic
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Ok; this is from Kaplan and not from GMAC and so the OA is discussable

1. Is this question abiding by the relative pronoun’s touch rule? No and why?

2. The sentence is said to be reversed and the subject is market. So what? The crux is whether the market is bringing the crowds or the tele-shows are bringing. Can the market bring the crowds without the tele - shows? That is why the word 'booming' has been used to describe the market. By any logic, the market would have remained languishing but for the tele shows that were able to tickle the public’s interest in certain kind of things. So, we can’t but conclude that the relative clause indeed modifies the shows rather than market. So the use of the singular verb ‘is bringing’, hop - stepping the noun ‘shows’ and trying to modify the distant 'market' is incongruous in IMO.

I would rather vote B in
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Out of the public’s interest in the details of and conflicts in other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing “regular” people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

1. other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing
Incorrect - have is not correct as they same is not in agreement with the subject that is 'Out of the public’s interest' which is singular

2. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing
Correct - has is in agreement with the subject 'Out of the public’s interest' and 'are bringing' is also in agreement with 'televisions shows'

3. another person’s life has grown a booming market for a “reality” television show that is bringing
Incorrect - changes the meaning as the same is being talked about in general for the people and not for a singular person.

4. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that is bringing
Incorrect - has in agreement but is bringing is not in agreement with shows.

5. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that bring
Incorrect - present participle form is preferred here than the verb itself....

None other than B.
In B, we have both pairs of S-V in agreement.
other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing

D is right. Reason:
"Out of the public’s interest in the details of and conflicts in other people’s lives" is a SUBJECT PHRASE ; and a subject phrase is always treated as Singular -> so "has" is correct.

"a booming market for “reality” television shows that is bringing" -> here "is" is correct bcos it referes to subject market and not shows


Please check a similar example here:

sc-determine-subject-106478.html

Hi Folks,

This one is indeed tricky because of the 'that' being placed near the word 'shows'. Grammatically, "...shows that bring "regular" people onto the screen with increasing frequency" is correct. However, (E) fails logically. "Reality" shows are already about regular people, but (E) means that the individual shows are featuring more and more regular people, since the plural verb means 'that' modifies 'shows. This seems a little silly; it's clear from the rest of the sentence that the make-up television as a whole is changing, not just the formula of a few shows.

Further, the word 'brings' is the simple present tense. Although there are several ways to use this tense, the most common one--and the one that applies here--is the habitual action. Use of the word 'brings' means that those shows are not just shifting immediately from actors to regular folks, but have been doing so as a matter of course!

The GMAT will usually have errors in its sentences that make them grammatically untenable. But sometimes a grammatically correct but nonsensical answer will show up, and those must be eliminated too. Since (E) has a long-term habit of more and more regular folks showing up on shows that are already 'reality' shows, we can conclude that it does not produce a particularly sensible meaning.

On the other hand, (D) has "...a booming market for "reality" television shows that is...", which looks fishy because of the singular verb 'is'. But 'is' doesn't apply to the plural noun 'shows' in choice (D). Rather, the market (for shows) is changing. (D) is sound construction and matches the intent of the sentence, and for those reasons is the correct answer.

Hope this helps!

Since the "Booming Market" is the thing that is growing, "Has" is the correct verb. (A) can be eliminated. And, "another person's life" doesn't make much sense, unless one person (Kim Kardashian?) is on ALL reality TV. That rules out (C)

(B), (D), and (E) are all very similar to one another, but the verb following the word 'that' is different. 'that' introduces a modifier for the noun or noun-phrase preceding it. Here is where it gets tricky. "That are bringing" and "that bring" both include a plural verb. So each of these phrases modifies a plural noun: "television shows." However, (D)'s "that is bringing" is singular, meaning it modifies the singular preceding noun-phrase, "a booming market for television shows."

So what makes the most sense? Well, in (B) and (E), there is a booming market for a specific type of show: {{shows that bring/are bringing "regular people" onto the television screen with increasing frequency}}. This doesn't actually make sense! It means that there is no market for a show that has ALWAYS had real people on it, but only for shows that USED to have actors but NOW have more real people. This is clearly illogical.

On the other hand, in (D), the market is bringing real people to TV. The meaning here is clear--reality TV shows are appearing in new time slots BECAUSE of this market, which is causing this change. Since (D) is the only sentence with a logical meaning, it is the correct answer.

Really it doesn't help. Still, the question for me why it is not B? Is it a market that brings new customers or shows do that? For me, shows definitely do that, if you have another opinion please explain.

Posted from GMAT ToolKit

(B), because of the plural verb 'are,' give us a long complex noun phrase: "reality" shows that are bringing regular people onto television screens with increasing regularity. (B) also tells us that there is a booming market for this type of show.

This, despite appearing grammatically correct, is logically inconsistent. Reality shows by definition bring regular people onto the screeen; it doesn't make sense for such shows to bring those people on with 'increasing regularity. Moreover, (B) implies that ONLY the reality shows that keep increasing the number of regular people they feature make up the 'booming market.' This also isn't the intended meaning of the sentence.

@Aki
The trap of the passage is to convolute it by reverse writing, while the trick of the solution is to write in the normal form.
The original sentence reads as:

Out of the public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

The reversed order will be

A booming market for "reality" television shows have grown out of the public's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives, which are bringing "regular" people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.
After flipping, you may now realize that the subject of the main clause is not public interest but a booming market. All the same, the subject is still is singular and there is no issue about the singular verb has grown. Therefore, A is gone

You mean to say that the use of another has no place in this context, I suppose. Therefore, C is out and I couldn’t agree more

It is not clear what you imply by saying we need future tense verb+ing and so E is out.
I have a doubt that you are rather taking verb+ing as future tense. Verb+ ing (here in this case bringing) is never a future tense. It can be a present participle or a gerund. It can be part of past progressive when we say - was or were bringing-, part of present progressive when we say is/are brining or part of a future progressive when we say will be bringing. When we use them in progressive tenses, we need to combine them with a suitable auxiliary verb to mark the tense.

In the last check, you have just stopped short of the end. It is not the interest that brings the people. The passage makes it clear in the very beginning itself that the interest is in the details and conflicts of other people’s lives. Therefore, it is the shows that draw the crowds. All that I explained in my previous note was just that. I am sorry you could not make much out of it.

However, I wonder how the flouting of the touch rule of, which is excused in Choice D. Choice B truthfully follows this touch rule creed and hence is grammatically superior to D unless somebody wants to go out of the way to justify the modification of which with the distant interest
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@daagh why did you choose B over E?

@ vibhav

Chose B over E for nothing much of grammatical reasons. Since the people are being drawn with increasing frequency, it looks like an on-going thing. So I think a progressive tense such as which are bringing will be better than just a staid present tense which we bring
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Hi folks,

You've chosen a tricky question indeed--I've seen no fewer then four threads on the subject! But here is one from last year with a detailed explanation of why the correct answers is correct. I hope it clears up your confusion!

chetan2u
Sir, please guide as to why D chosen over B.
In my opinion, B was the answer.

Hi,
that is a flexible pronoun while it forms a part of a 'relative clause'..
and can modify the preceding NOUN or NOUN phrase
here the relative clause is that is/are bringing..
And at most occasions, the meaning should tell you the verb to be used..

Now, we all are used to justifying the OA, so here is the other side..
lets see the OG question, from where this has been copied..
"Out of America's fascination with all things antique have grown a market for bygone styles of furniture and fixtures that are bringing back the chaise lounge, the overstuffed sofa, and the claw-footed bathtub."

here if we see, CAN furniture and fixtures BRING back SOMETHING.... NO
It is the market of these things that CAN bring back the chaise lounge, the overstuffed sofa, and the claw-footed bathtub."
SO here "that IS" is correct.....

But can we say the same thing about the Q being discussed-
Out of the publc's interest in the details of and conflicts in other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows that are bringing "regular" people onto television screen with increasing frequency.
I have my doubts if someone says that ONLY D can be the answer....
B is also a perfectly legitimate answer..
----a booming marketfor "reality" television showsthat is bringing "regular" people onto television screen with increasing frequency.
----a booming market for "reality" television shows that are bringing "regular" people onto television screen with increasing frequency.

BOTH are CORRECT..
so you have TWO correct answers here.. B and D
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OP: [ Out of the public's interest in the details and conflicts in other people's lives have grown a booming market for "reality" television shows that are bringing regular people onto the television screen with increasing frequency. ]

A) other people's lives have grown a booming market for ''reality" television shows that are bringing

-> All right. Although the form may throw us off (subject-verb inversion), we should immediately be able to see that there is no consistency between the subject and the verb anyway. Therefore, A is incorrect. Unfortunately, all the other choices have the correct form.

B) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows that have brought

-> Change in meaning. These shows are apparently still bringing the average Joes onto the television screen; changing the verb like this makes it sound like there is now a market for shows that in the past brought regular people onto the television screen. Therefore, B is incorrect.

C) another person's life has grown a booming market for a "reality" television show that is bringing

-> Change in meaning again. This makes it sound like the phrase could be referring to the public's general interest in the details of the life of a specific person. Its ambiguity makes it decisively less preferable. Therefore, C is incorrect.

D) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows that is bringing
E) other people's lives has grown a booming market for "reality" television shows that bring

-> I'll group these two together, because this is probably the tricky part that justifies the question's status as a "700+". Read very carefully the bolded parts. We need to discern if "the market is bringing the average Joes onto the television screen" (D) or "the shows themselves are bringing the average Joes onto the television screen" (E).

While we don't know the wording of the original phrase, there is one critical element in how the phrase is supposed to continue:
"regular people onto the television screen with increasing frequency".

Got it? It's market that, ultimately, makes the shows bring regular people onto the screen with increasing frequency. Now look at E: could the market have some particular interest in "shows that bring people onto the screen with increasing frequency"? It definitely sounds off compared to the other one. Rule out E. D is correct.

Choice D: The antecedent for the relative pronoun "which" is "shows". Hence "which" is plural, and for a plural subject singular verb "is bringing" is wrong.

Choice B: The present continuous tense is problematic - it indicates as though at the current moment the shows are bringing people onto televison screens (i.e., the movement of people are happening at the current moment).

I chose (E) on this one. On GMAT SC, 'which' modifiers typically modify the closest available noun phrase. In this case, that's 'television shows', not 'market'. That's the first hint that we want 'bring' or 'are bringing', not 'is bringing'. The second hint is in the logic of the sentence. It's not the market that brings ordinary people to the screen; it's the shows. Logically, you want a verb that agrees with 'shows'.
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Out of the public’s interest in the details of and conflicts in other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing “regular” people onto the television screen with increasing frequency.

1. other people’s lives have grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing - "have" does not go with "interest. we need "has" + "are" does not work here, we need "is"
2. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that are bringing - "are" does not work here with the singular subject "market", we need "is"
3. another person’s life has grown a booming market for a “reality” television show that is bringing - "a reality television show" is incorrect as we are speaking about "television shows" in general + "another persons" changes the meaning.. basically a mess of sentence that does not deserve any analysis
4. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that is bringing - CORRECT.. "has" works with singular subject "interest" + "is" works with singular subject "market"
5. other people’s lives has grown a booming market for “reality” television shows that bring - "bring" is incorrect as "booming market" is the the subject which is singular