Bunuel wrote:
The Theropod dinosaur
group, which included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor that were notorious for sharp, serrated teeth that differentiated it from the herbivorous dinosaur groups.
A. group, which included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor that were
B. group, which included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor, were
C. group included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor and were
D. group included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor that was
E. group, which included bloodthirsty killing-machines such as the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor, was
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:
The most concrete decision point in this problem is the subject-verb agreement choice between “was” and “were” at the end of each answer. Before you go to that, realize that (A) does not contain a main verb so it can be eliminated first – everything that comes after “group,” is a modifier and there is no main verb in the sentence to go with the subject.
In (B), (C), and (E) the verb goes with the subject of the sentence. To find the proper subject, use slash-and-burn to get rid of modifiers and see that the sentence is really: “The group…
was” or “The group…
were.” Normally, subject-verb agreement choices are fairly easy to assess, but remember that some nouns such as group, committee, team, etc. can take either a plural or singular verb depending on the intent of the sentence (is it referring to the group as a unit or the members of the group?). Here the verb could certainly be either “was” or “were” except for the fact that the pronoun “it” is found in the non-underlined portion! That pronoun demands that group be treated as singular so you can eliminate (B) and (C). For (D), the verb “was” is part of a “that” clause modifying “the Spinosaurus and Utahraptor” so it would need to the plural “were”.
Only (E) uses the proper verb “was” to match the pronoun “it” and agree with “the dinosaur group.”