The idea behind the Personal Long Letter campaign is that a single imp

The idea behind the Personal Long Letter campaign is that a single impassioned constituent may sway a lawmaker’s opinion, whereas a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm.
 a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm
 only alarm is caused by a half-dozen banded together
 only alarm has been caused by a half-dozen banded together
 a half-dozen banded together only cause him alarm
 a half-dozen have caused him only alarm when banded together

Parallelism
D

Hey All,

Lots of ideas on this one, but no one's taken it apart yet. That's what I'm here for!

The idea behind the Personal Long Letter campaign is that a single impassioned constituent may sway a lawmaker’s opinion, whereas a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm.

This is clearly a verb tense and subject-verb agreement question. We notice the former in the split between "causes" and "has been caused". We notice the latter int he split between "causes" and "cause" (or "has" and "have"). For subject-verb agreement, we check the subject and make sure it matches. "Half-dozen (constituents)" is plural, so we need "cause" or "have". As for verb tense, you always check it against some context verb in the sentence. In this case, we have "is", a present tense verb. Then we ask ourselves, is there any good reason to change tense? In this case, there is not.

 a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm
Problem: "Causes" doesn't match the subject "half dozen (constituents)"

 only alarm is caused by a half-dozen banded together
PROBLEM: This is actually a concision issue. No reason to switch to the passive voice here. While this is a rule, it's VERY rare on the real test, and comes up way more when people are trying to build questions. DO NOT cross something off just because it's passive. We're only doing it here because there's a perfectly great answer WITHOUT the passive voice elsewhere.

 only alarm has been caused by a half-dozen banded together
PROBLEM: No reason to switch to the present perfect tense ("has been caused").

 a half-dozen banded together only cause him alarm
ANSWER: Correct tense, correct subject-verb agreement.

 a half-dozen have caused him only alarm when banded together
PROBLEM: No reason to switch to the present perfect tense ("have caused").

Hope that helps!

-t

Some how A seems to be correct.

I guess the counting is applied to 'dozen' (which is half in this case and hence singular).

I have posted an artilce regarding collective nouns and their corresponding verb form. Please check
collective-nouns-singular-or-plural-128340.html

Now, I am clear why the OA is A. Here the key word is 'banded together' which means the author is talking about some group but not individual items and hence the verb should be 'causes' but not 'cause'.

Tommy,

A half dozen flowers was sent to the girl
half dozen flowers were sent to the girl

Doesent the a in statement 1 necessiate a singular?

The rule for collective nouns is this: Use a singular verb when the group is considered as a unit acting together. Use a plural verb when the individual members of the group are acting separately.

now banded together literally means combined, so the option A becomes

(A) a half-dozen (constituents) combined only causes him alarm
here the half-dozen constituents are acting collectively, hence a singular verb causes is appropriate.

Other examples are

(a) The committee insists on having its proposal presented to the mayor.
(b) The committee are still arguing over whom to send as their representative to the mayor.
P.S. : You need more than 1 person to have an argument.

Official Solution:

The idea behind the Personal Long Letter campaign is that a single impassioned constituent may make a lawmaker change his opinion, whereas a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm.

A. a half-dozen banded together only causes him alarm
B. only alarm is caused by a half-dozen banded together
C. only alarm has been caused by a half-dozen banded together
D. a half-dozen banded together only cause him alarm
E. a half-dozen have caused him only alarm when banded together

The noun half-dozen, though it refers to a collection of six discrete things or people, is grammatically singular. Any verbs that take it as their antecedent, then, must also be singular. This sentence also tests correct verb form, which should be simple present tense because the sentence refers to facts that are generally true. The sentence is correct as written.

1. The noun half-dozen agrees with the verb causes, and the correct simple present tense is used to describe facts generally believed to be true.
2. Verb tense is correct in this option, but the phrasing of the sentence is wordy and awkward.
3. The verb form has been caused unnecessarily uses past perfect, and the word order is awkward.
4. Cause does not agree with the singular a half-dozen.
5. This option is awkward and wordy.

Answer: A
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