Bunuel wrote:
The land under dispute -- 7000 acres in all --
were once the legal property and burial ground for a local tribe.
A. were once the legal property and burial ground for a local tribe
B. were once both the legal property and burial ground for a local tribe
C. was once the legal property of a local tribe for whom the land had been a burial ground
D. was once the legal property of a local tribe for whom they had been a burial ground
E. was once a local tribe's legal property and a burial ground for them
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:
This problem directly tests singular-vs-plural agreement, both for subject and verb and for pronoun and antecedent.
The first decision point you see should be the difference between "was" and "were" as the first word of each answer choice, indicating that you're likely dealing with subject-verb agreement as a primary decision. The subject of the sentence is "the land," a singular noun, so that verb decision should be clear: you need the singular "was" and can therefore eliminate choices (A) and (B).
The next decision point may not be as clear as the first-word difference between choices, but whenever singular-plural is in play in one portion of the sentence it's a good idea to scan answer choices to see if pronouns exist. Here (D) includes the plural pronoun "they" and (E) includes the plural pronoun "them." What is the antecedent? The only noun for which the land could logically serve as a burial ground is "tribe," so you cannot use a plural pronoun here. Therefore (D) and (E) are incorrect, and
the correct answer must be (C).