nsomayaj wrote:
I have a question regarding (E) - the most reliable signal of true wealth is an individual's ability and willingness
It says the most reliable signal ( singular) and is an individual's ability and willingness ( plural ie: 2 things). How is this right?
It's possible to have plural/singular mismatches like this when the plural units are somehow inseparable. So you might say
Troy and Carla are a team, where "Troy and Carla" are plural, but "a team" is singular. Sometimes we'd change the meaning by trying to force plural to match with plural, or singular to match with singular. If I said
The gift I want is a canvas and a frame, that sentence suggests "canvas and a frame" are a single thing. If instead I said
The gifts I want are a canvas and a frame, that suggests that the canvas and the frame are two separate things (I'm not a painter, so I don't know which of those sentences is better!).
I don't even understand the OE here (it doesn't make sense), but at least as far as the singular/plural question goes, I think the sentence is correct. I can't be completely sure, because the word "signal" here seems to be a term of art (if it isn't, I'm not sure why the sentence doesn't say "sign"), so I'm not sure what it conveys. But if the sentence used "are", so if it said, simplifying, "Signs of wealth are an ability and a willingness to spend absurdly", then half of the sentence becomes almost vacuous -- the ability to spend absurd amounts is essentially the definition of wealth, so this economist wouldn't be saying anything helpful if he described that as a sign of wealth. It's only if he is saying that someone needs to be both able and willing to spend ridiculous amounts that the sentence actually has any content. But it's still unclear to me why the sentence needs to say "willingness and ability" at all, when it could omit all of that and simply say that truly wealthy people engage in conspicuous consumption.
There are at least four other logical issues with the OE, so no answer is good here. What follows the dash is a definition of "conspicuous consumption", and if you looked that term up in a dictionary, a definition would never read "To spend it in a way that is patently absurd". The word "it" simply cannot be there; the definition is only correct if "it" is removed. It also becomes tautological, and thus pointless, to say "the sign of wealth is that someone spends it", because if someone can spend wealth, obviously they have wealth. It's like saying "the sign someone has money is that they have it". I also don't understand the underlined part of the OE; the sentence shifts from talking about "the signal of true wealth" in the abstract (which could be talking about, say society's wealth), and then starts talking about some "individual" not mentioned previously. If the sentence is trying to describe a sign that an individual is truly wealthy, it needs to start as answer A does. And you can spend money, but you can't "spend wealth" as best I can tell, but that's what the sentence says in the OE.
It really is best to stick with official Verbal questions for practice.
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29 Dec 2021, 03:21
