The first shots of the American Revolution, fired at Lexington and Con

imSKR
"In reaching" and "to reach" mean very different things, so we would be unlikely to use them in parallel. When we use the construction "in + -ing," we are setting ourselves up to talk about the significance of the activity: "In reaching this goal, I have fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine."
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The first shots of the American Revolution, fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, were, according to legend, heard around the world, but news of these shots, which were sent by swift messenger, took four days in reaching New York City as well as another additional eleven days to reach Charleston, South Carolina.


(A) shots, which were sent by swift messenger, took four days in reaching New York City as well as another additional eleven days -- 'which' is modifying 'shots'

(B) shots that was sent by swift messenger took four days in order to reach New York City, and also another eleven days -- Incorrect modifier

(C) shots that were sent by swift messenger took four days to reach New York City and another eleven days -- Incorrect modifier

(D) shots took four days by swift messenger in order to reach New York City and another eleven days in addition - Redundant/wordy

(E) shots took four days by swift messenger to reach New York City and another eleven days -- Correct
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Hello,

How do we know that "news" is singular here ?

If we can't know for sure, how do we eliminate c)?

Thanks

Hello Naptiste,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in English, the noun "news" is always singular and uncountable.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Thanks

Is there any list with this type of words that are the most recurrent on the GMAT (or that appeared in the OG) ?

Hello Naptiste,

We hope this finds you well.

In general, it is not feasible to memorize such tricky words. Fortunately, the GMAT is not likely to base a question around such a trap. Subject-verb agreement traps typically place the relevant verb and noun far apart to create confusion, use collective nouns, or use "and" to join two singular nouns into a plural noun phrase.

If you do find yourself confused as to whether a noun is singular or plural, as you did here, see whether it is countable or uncountable. An uncountable noun cannot be plural, and if the noun is countable, it is likely that it will be clear whether it is plural or singular.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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In this Q, I agree that choice-E is the best out of the given choices.

but my doubt in choice-A and B is-

In option A - which were.... is modifying shots. ??(because were(plural)-verb agrees with plural subject )
In option B - That was is referring to news ??? because here, was is singular and hence that can't refer to shots (plural) ??

and hence, the reason to reject choice-b is redundancy error. Not the modification error ?

Hi Sigmabeta,

This is a meaning call.

1. {News of the shots} took four days by swift messenger...
2. {News of the shots that was sent by swift messenger} took four days...

The second one tells us that the news of the shots may have been sent by other means, but the specific news that was sent by swift messenger took four days to reach New York City. This is very unlikely to be the intended meaning. Instead, the author is most likely trying to tell us that it took some time for people to become aware of what happened, because news of the shots (in general) took at least four days to reach New York City and another eleven days to reach Charleston.
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Hi AjiteshArun,

In Option B, apart from the "in order to " error ,



is the red part (after comma) correct ? We need an IC but , and also another eleven days to reach Charleston, South Carolina is not an IC.

Regards

Hi Iwillget770,

Are you looking for an independent clause there because of the comma before and?
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Hi AjiteshArun ,

Yes I am looking for an independent clause because of the comma before and .

If we read the sentence by putting OPTION B ,

The first shots of the American Revolution, fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, were, according to legend, heard around the world, but news of these shots that was sent by swift messenger took four days in order to reach New York City, and also another eleven days to reach Charleston, South Carolina.

then,the BLUE part is IC
The RED part is another IC

Now, the brown part after , and should also be an IC if it needs to be parallel to the RED PART.


or if the the intended parallelism is


Then in that case the comma is not required. If comma is mentioned then we cannot take the verb TOOK as common.

Sentence when read without comma:

but news of these shots that was sent by swift messenger took four days in order to reach New York City
and
news of these shots that was sent by swift messenger took also another eleven days to reach Charleston, South Carolina.


Regards

Hi Iwillget770,

We shouldn't look at that rule as an absolute. Have a look at this official question.

You could also go through this SC session:


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@gmatninja

Can't the 'were' in option C refer to 2 sets of news sent to New York City and Charleston?
Also, can you please explain why E is the correct answer? I sounds awful.

Kindly help me understand why option C is incorrect.

The first shots (Plural) were heard around the world. But news ( Singular) of these shots( Plural) that were sent by X took Y time.

whether the phrase that were sent is modifying shots?
So shots is the subject for verb were.

No, the "news" itself is a singular concept -- it's the same news that reached both of those places.

Regardless, the "that" modifier in (C) is, at best, very confusing. It seems to modify "shots", and that doesn't make any sense -- the shots themselves weren't sent by messenger to other cities!

The prepositional phrases in (E) might seem a bit clunky, but the meaning of these modifiers (shown in brackets below) is perfectly clear:

News [of these shots] took (1) four days [by swift messenger] [to reach New York City] and (2) another eleven days [to reach Charleston, South Carolina].

Since the parallelism checks out and the modifiers are much clearer in (E) that in (C), we have to go with (E) regardless of how we think it sounds.

Check out this article or this video for more on why your ear is your enemy when it comes to GMAT SC.
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