The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 75 Sentence Correction (SC1) 
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The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund  and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has  led to a rise in interest in Individual Retirement Accounts or IRAs

A) and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has

B) and they have overall faith in in the long-term growth of the stock market which has

C) as well as their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, has

D) as well as overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, have

E) and its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have

The  best or excellent answers get kudos , which will be  awarded  after   the answer is revealed.

Abhishek009 · Accepted Answer

the Social Security Trust Fund = Will take singular (its)
concern about the solvency and overall faith = Will take plural as joined by AND (have)

Errors in other options marked in RED, correct Answer must be (E)

arunshankarkkkk · Answer

E should be the right answer.

A) is wrong because it uses a singular verb(has) for a plural subject(Public's concern and their overall faith)
B) is Wrong for the same reason as mentioned in A
C) is Wrong because of the use of comma before "has".The Comma doesn't serve any purpose in this option.GMAT never encourages inappropriate usages
D) is Wrong because it uses a plural verb "Have" for a singular subject public's concern.Remember As well As is not same as And.The first subject defines the verb agreement.So in our case it is Public's concern,a singular subject.
E) is the Right answer,Which ignores all the above errors.

Correct me if i am wrong!

yash312 · Answer

imo E

A) and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has ----wrong, no antecedant of their, verb should be HAVE

B) and they have overall faith in in the long-term growth of the stock market which has---wrong, no antecedant of they, meaning change

C) as well as their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, has---wrong, no antecedant of their, meaning change

D) as well as overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, have---wrong, Verb usage should be singular for Subject public's general concern

E) and its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have---Correct

anvesh004 · Answer

(Concern... And Faith..) have led to..

Need 'it' instead of 'their', as Social security fund is singular.

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warrior1991 · Answer

Their is plural but public's is singular.S-V agreement error.

They is plural but public's is singular.S-V agreement error.

Their is plural but public's is singular.S-V agreement error.

as well as and have not in S-V agreement.  'A as well as B'  takes a singular form and not plural.

This is correct structure.

IMO E.

GiuPao94 · Answer

The subject of the sentence is "the public's general concern" so it is a singular subject. We can rule out A B C due to Subject-verb agreement
D presents a point that change the meaning of the sentence and makes it sounds awkard. Moreover, "have" does not agree with the subject.
E is the correct answer for sure.
Can we get something of more difficult? :P

A) and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has

B) and they have overall faith in in the long-term growth of the stock market which has

C) as well as their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, has

D) as well as overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, have

E) and its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have

Shrinidhi · Answer

The subject is singular-Public..so the second part of sentence should also use Singular Verb "it's".
The correct option is E which uses singular subject-verb pair .

Posted from my mobile device

rohu123 · Answer

I have a doubt that in option E, its refers to the social security fund, while in original sentence, their pronoun was calling People

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generis · Answer

rohu123 , option A does not determine original meaning. If the correct option differs from the meaning presented in option A, such difference means absolutely nothing except that the grammatically and logically correct answer displays the intended meaning. I can understand why you might think that option A determines the original answer. This myth started spreading a long time ago. Since then, the myth has expanded geometrically. Again, the grammatically correct answer also contains the correct meaning, and vice versa. If you need more evidence, you can Google www.gmatclub.com sentence correction generis "option A does not determine" (in quotation marks) and meaning You will find citation links to experts with 10+ years' of experience teaching the GMAT, all of whom say that the correct answer need not match option A's apparently intended meaning. I say "apparently" about Option A's intended meaning because there are plenty of instances in which Option A's meaning is incomprehensible or based on faulty logic ("Logical predication" in the official guides' official explanations). Or search my posts in SC, then search again for "Option A." I hope that helps.

generis · Answer

Hi GiuPao94 - good to see you again. In option C, "as well as" does not make the subject plural. Your assertion is incorrect. Correct : Michael, as well as Arne, likes cookies. Wrong : Michael, as well as Arne, like cookies. Harder questions? Have you looked through the Butler questions? We have worked hard to post more than 150 questions. If you do not believe that the 700 level questions are hard enough for you, let me know. This advice applies to everyone: before anyone takes "harder" questions exclusively, she or he ought to be scoring with at least 80% accuracy in allotted time per question on questions at the 600-level and 600-700 level. (And for those of you who want a 700+ score, that accuracy level should be 95-98% on 600-700 questions and 10-20 seconds under time allotted.) In fact, there are plenty of 600-700 level questions that are hard. You can search the forum HERE I will do a little bit of the work for you. Below are hardER questions. I have plenty of work, though.

Hard question 1 Hard question 2 Hard question 3 Hard question 4 I hope that helps.

generis · Answer

Project SC Butler: Day 75 Sentence Correction (SC1)

For SC butler Questions Click Here

The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has led to a rise in interest in Individual Retirement Accounts or IRAs

A) and their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market has
B) and they have overall faith in in the long-term growth of the stock market which has
C) as well as their overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, has
D) as well as overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market, have
E) and its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My annotations are in blue typeface.

•The word their refers to the word public. However, their is plural while public is singular. Eliminate A. Eliminate C, which repeats the mistake

• Another plural pronoun, they, has been added to B, which makes it wrong for the same reason as that in A and C; eliminate answer B

• [I do not agree with the authors of this OE on this option] Option D uses a plural verb yet again for a singular subject.
As well as does not make any subject, public included, plural.

• Choice E corrects the pronoun (or verb, if the verb was what you chose to focus on) error.

Answer E

COMMENTS
First, arunshankarkkkk , welcome!

If anyone has questions after she or he reads the OE, please post them.

RULE: As well as does not make a subject plural.
Other similar "additive phrases" also do not make a subject plural. GMAC tests the issue.

ADDITIVE PHRASES. Additive phrases such as the five below do not make the subject plural.

a) P, as well as Q,
b) P, along with Q
c) P, together with Q,
d) P, in addition to Q,
e) P, including Q,

Correct: Samuel, as well as Bjorn, eats lunch every day.
Wrong: Samuel, as well as Bjorn, eat lunch every day.

Correct: Prerak, along with Abhishek, eats lunch every day.
Wrong: Prerak, along with Abhishek, eat lunch every day.

If you see any of those "additive phrases" attached to one subject —
as well as, along with, together with, in addition to, including— the subject is not made plural by those phrases.

Those phrases are prepositional phrases. (Including is defined as a preposition in Oxford Online Dictionary.
The verb to include, obviously, is not a preposition.)
Because they are prepositional phrases and not conjunctions (e.g. and), the rules about compound subjects change.

Learn the pattern. It's not hard. A little weird, maybe,

but not hard.

If you would like further explanation, please see this post, here

warrior1991 wrote the best answer. Kudos!

but not hard. If you would like further explanation, please see this post, here warrior1991 wrote the best answer. Kudos!

GiuPao94 · Answer

Hi! Option C presents "their" and this surely lead to a plural subject, and this is the reason why I ruled out it quickly. I'll give a shot to your links, thank you

generis · Answer

GiuPao94  , you're very welcome.

You wrote:  Option C presents "their" and this surely lead to a plural subject . . . 
  No. "Their" does  not  surely lead to a plural subject.

The phrase "as well as" makes "the public" the only "real" subject. Public is singular.

THEIR is an inappropriate pronoun for a singular public.

Even if C's pronoun correctly were ITS, what follows  as well as   is not included in the subject.

What follows an additive phrase does not matter. If the first noun is singular, the verb should be singular.

Although I explained the rule about additive phrases, you seem to have ignored what I wrote and to have simply insisted, incorrectly, that the subject in option C is compound.

The subject in C is not compound.

Please cite some authority for your implied statement that "as well as" can make the subject plural on the GMAT?

I will stand corrected, and contentedly so at that. I will amend my answer accordingly.

Incorrect assertions create confusion.

Forum members who read the thread later do not know what to believe.

As well as, including,  and  in addition to  are the three most commonly tested additive phrases.

Example 3 from Mike McGarry's post linked below not only has a plural after the additive phrase, but also has a compound additive phrase.

The subject of that sentence, just as in Option C, is still singular.

People can find Mike Mcgarry's post on  additive phrases   HERE .

shinichikudo · Answer

We can directly eliminate A, B and D.

Only C & E left.

Answer E makes sense since ''the solvency'' and ''its overall faith'' together make the verb plurial ->'' have''.

Answer E.

deveshj21 · Answer

DEAR EXPERT,
What does its refer to in the choice B, as the subject of the sentence is public's general concern, not public itself.

Please help me fill up my gap.

MWithrock · Answer

Tricky. BUT, something that I notice is if I can see that any of the pronouns and subjects disagree you can usually knock out a few choices pretty fast. In this rare case it knocked out all of them and I was had this out in a few seconds.

Ayush1692 · Answer

I think E is the right answer not because 'its' refer to fund.
(Fund's faith in the growth... have led... )
How a fund can have faith? Public can have faith which makes more sense.
In my opinion public refers to a group of people ; so it's a collective noun and collective nouns are always singular.
So its refer to the public.
Hence, public's concern and public's faith (so plural subject) get a plural verb have.
So, E is the right answer.

Posted from my mobile device

generis · Answer

deveshj21 , I think that you mean (E)? The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund AND its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have led to a rise in interest in Individual Retirement Accounts or IRAs. The public in the possessive form actually refers to two nouns, concern and faith . The public's concern about the Trust Fund AND ITS overall faith in the stock market . . . If we break the sentence down, we find a compound subject -- Underline = possessive adjective -- Italics = noun to which the possessive adjectives refers -- Bold = main words in the prepositional phrases that are the direct objects of concern and faith , respectively. The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund AND its overall faith in the long-term growth of the stock market have led to a rise in interest in Individual Retirement Accounts or IRAs. Hope that helps.

deveshj21 · Answer

Sorry for the typo, I meant "E" only, and thank you for clearing my doubt.

Posted from my mobile device

The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The public's general concern about the solvency of the Social Security

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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