Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country

Question

Stranger Things , along with  The Hunt for Red October  and  No Country for Old Men ,  are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful  works set in the 1980s.

(A) are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful
 
(B) is counted among the best examples of commercially successful
 
(C) is counted as one of the best example of commercially successful
 
(D) are counted to be one of the best examples of commercial success
 
(E) is counted as one of the best example of commercial success

DIII · Answer

IMO B
Stranger things is the subject so A, D are out.
Commercial should modify success hence E is out.
For counted as Vs counted among, I feel like counted among is the idiom.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Nice to see you still solving questions

aceGMAT21 · Answer

Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country for Old Men,  are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful  works set in the 1980s.

Intended Meaning :  Stranger Things (a commercially successful work) is counted among the best examples of commercially successful works set in the 1980s.

Also, one more thing to note here is that there is only one MAIN SUBJECT in the above question. The other subjects are the part of the non-vital modifier, so they cannot contribute to make a complex subject.

(A) are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful
 PRONOUN NUMBER AGREEMENT ERROR for a singular commercially successful work -- Stranger Things.
 
(B) is counted among the best examples of commercially successful
 CORRECT.

(C) is counted as one of the best example of commercially successful
 Meaning Error. As per the intended meaning, Stranger Things, along with 2 other works, is counted among the best examples of commercially successful work. Option C, instead means that Stranger Things is only the best example of commercially successful work. As it says 'ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLE' and not 'ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES' of commercially successful work. INCORRECT.

(D) are counted to be one of the best examples of commercial success
 PRONOUN NUMBER AGREEMENT ERROR for a singular commercially successful work. Here, as per my understanding, the usage of ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES is making sense.
COMMERCIAL should be replaced with COMMERCIALLY. As an adjective cannot modify another adjective. So, the construction 'commercial success work' is incorrect.

(E) is counted as one of the best example of commercial success
 Meaning error similar to choice C. 
COMMERCIAL should be replaced with COMMERCIALLY. As an adjective cannot modify another adjective. So, the construction 'commercial success work' is incorrect.

DIII · Answer

Yeah, I have grown to like this.
Also, If you don't mind me hijacking this post, During my exam I saw a "this" all by itself in the non-underlined part.
I don't remember the question exactly but It was like "this suggests that ..". As per my understanding and manhattan SC, "this, these, that, those", when they are used as pronouns, they can't exist by themselves and need to be used as "this finding suggests that" or "this observation suggests that".

what do you think?

broall · Answer

I see that your finding is odd, too. Many said that GMAC consider the structure that use "this" as a pronoun ambiguous. Did you see those questions in SC section or in CR and RC?

DIII · Answer

In SC, and in the non-underlined part

broall · Answer

Really odd. Want to see others' opinions

prabugmat · Answer

IMO B

A & D -- SV disagreement 
C -- Meaning error
E --Similar to E

AjiteshArun · Answer

I think I've also seen something like that before. Appears to be very rare on the GMAT, but not impossible. In the explanations, they tend to say that such usage leads to lack of clarity, which is not really  absolutely  wrong.

reshamdhaga · Answer

things is plural or singular?? i have confusion here

DIII · Answer

Hey,
"Stranger things" is the name of a TV Series. 
The two words combined form a singular subject. 
You can know this because  AjiteshArun  has put "Stranger Things" in Italics.

vasuca10 · Answer

Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country for Old Men, are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful works set in the 1980s.

(A) are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful - SV disagreement as subject is stranger things which is singular

(B) is counted among the best examples of commercially successful - Correct, SV agreement and counted among is correct in usage and structure
st
(C) is counted as one of the best example of commercially successful - Meaning error, Stranger Things alone is not counted as best but along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country for Old Men together counted as among the be

(D) are counted to be one of the best examples of commercial success - SV disagreement as subject is stranger things which is singular

(E) is counted as one of the best example of commercial success- Meaning Error as in choice C and further it must be commercially rather than commercial
Expert  mikemcgarry  sir Please guide whether my reasoning is correct

AjiteshArun · Answer

Notice that options C and D use  one of the best  example  .

After  one of the , you're really looking for a  plural  noun ( examples ), not a singular noun ( example ).

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear vasuca10 , I'm happy to respond.

To tell you the truth, I am not a fan of this question. The trick of a singular subject plus an additive phrase appears sometimes in official questions, but I have never seen an official question use a singular subject that is a title in the plural. Here, the movie Stranger Things is the title. The reference is a single movie, but the sentence does not clarify this by saying " the movie Stranger Things ." For GMAT test takers not familiar with popular US culture in the 1980s, this might not be clear. I think that part of the question was poorly designed. The rest of the question is somewhat pedestrian in its design: the adverb/adjective swap might be confusing for non-native speakers, but this particularly combination would not be very challenging for native speakers. In fact, in general, the entire question would not be particularly challenging for a 600+ native speaker. The official questions hold to a much higher bar: among other things, they are quite challenging even for native speakers. For this relatively straightforward question, your analysis seems fine. Here's a considerably more challenging GMAT SC practice question. The CEO of Laminar Flow Does all this make sense? Mike

SafSin28 · Answer

Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country for Old Men, are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful works set in the 1980s.

Strange Things is a proper noun. Hence, it is a singular. 'along with' doesn't affect to the subject of the sentence. Therefore, we should find a singular verb.

(A) are counted as among the best examples of commercially successful---> out. Are is misused. We don't have to analyze other errors as we have found an obvious mistake.

(B) is counted among the best examples of commercially successful---> this is the right choice.

(C) is counted as one of the best example of commercially successful---> One of the best example? Why not examples? So, out.

(D) are counted to be one of the best examples of commercial success---> Out for the same reason as in A option.

(E) is counted as one of the best example of commercial success---> Out for the same reason as in C option

AjiteshArun · Answer

Update :
We can now say with confidence that  this approach is the correct one .

Official question SC17041.01

Here are my thoughts on  this :

Generally, in English 
The usage of  this  to refer to some person, event, or thing mentioned in the sentence (or even outside the sentence:  Don't do this ) is acceptable. Here are a few examples:

1.   He studied at Stanford , and  this  allowed him to develop the network that he needed.

2.   Companies in the area want MBAs ; we know  this  because we've spoken with them.

3.   Electric cars  are generally quite expensive, but  this  is not.

4.  You should take  accounting and marketing  as  these  are the most important for you.  ( these  is the plural form)

Such usage is allowed in English, but may not be very precise. For example, in (3), the  one  after  this  is understood:
3a.   Electric cars  are generally quite expensive, but  this one  is not. 
or
3b.   Electric cars  are generally quite expensive, but  this electric car  is not.

Similarly, in (4), the sentence assumes a word like  subjects :
4a.  You should take  accounting and marketing  as  these subjects  are the most important for you.

An interesting point here is that  that  and  those  are much more common than  this  and  these  in such constructions (something like 10:1 if I remember correctly). For example, we can generally expect people to prefer

1a.  He studied at Stanford, and  that  allowed him to develop the network that he needed. 
to
1b.  He studied at Stanford, and  this  allowed him to develop the network that he needed.

and

4b.  You should take accounting and marketing as  those  are the most important for you. 
to
4c.  You should take accounting and marketing as  these  are the most important for you.

On the GMAT 
Such usage is vague, but I would not go so far as to say that it is "unacceptably vague". It is, however, a very good sign that the option we're considering is incorrect. All in all, I'd advise you to use it as just that: a sign. Be aware of this concept, use it, but don't put it all the way up there with something like SVA.

Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country

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Stranger Things, along with The Hunt for Red October and No Country

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