All of the university’s faculty is appalled by the decision to hire as

Question

All of the university’s faculty is appalled by the decision to hire as university president the senator censured for influence peddling, but some  are willing to extend for  him a civil welcome.

A. are willing to extend for

B. is willing to extend to

C. are willing to extend to

D. is willing for extending to

E. are willing for extending for

mihir0710 · Accepted Answer

Official Explanation by Mikemcgarry on his blog :
Split #1: SV Agreement. The subject of the second clause, “some”, refers back to the “the university’s faculty”. This is a collective noun. While there are many faculty members, the faculty is singular, and “all of the faculty” or “some of the faculty” must be singular as well. Notice the singular verb in the first half of the sentence. The second must be singular as well. Choices (A) & (C) & (E) are incorrect.

Split #2a: idiom with “willing”. The adjective “willing” take an infinitive: willing to do X. The structure “willing for doing X” is never correct. Choices (D) & (E) make this mistake.

Split #2b: idiom with “extend”. When we give someone a welcome, we say that we extend the welcome to him. Use of “for” in this context is never correct. Choices (A) & (E) make this mistake.

For all these reasons, (B) is the only possible answer.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Although "faculty" is a collective noun, I just don't buy the usage here. We need some flexibility, and we shouldn't let a so-called rule force us into a construction that doesn't make sense. The article linked below provides a good tip. To see if a collective noun such as faculty should be used as a plural, see if it makes sense to add "members" to the word.

https://languagetips.wordpress.com/2012 ... -nauseous/

Chets25 · Answer

I understand FACULTY is Singular...but doesn't the word 'SOME' means more than 1 hence ARE should be used?

All of the university’s faculty is appalled by the decision to hire as university president the senator censured for influence peddling, but some are willing to extend for him a civil welcome.

A. are willing to extend for

B. is willing to extend to

C. are willing to extend to

D. is willing for extending to

E. are willing for extending for

Meechampolee · Answer

C is the answer. 'Some' is Plural. Please update that.

elegantm · Answer

Dear,

It's NOT compulsory that SOME is always PLURAL....
1. Some of the money  WAS  stolen
2. Some of the documents  WERE  stolen.

Which of the above sentence is correct.....?  BOTH ARE CORRECT

So, SOME could be SINGULAR or PLURAL, depending upon usage

Look at two sentences 
ALL of the university's faculty  IS  appalled -  Correct 
& 
SOME  ARE  willing -  Incorrect since faculty is treated singular 
or
SOME of the university's facult  IS  willing  - CORRECT

So, options A,C,E are out.

Correct idiomatic usage is  Willing TO EXTEND or EXTEND TO.

Hence Answer B

GMATisLovE · Answer

Some can be either Singular or Plural depending on the noun it refers to. In this context "some" is referring to "university’s faculty". The non-underline portion of the sentence " university’s faculty   is " use "is" clearly gives us a clue that it should be considered singular. Hence the answer "B"

darn · Answer

SANAM  - Some, Any, None, All, More/Most  can be singular or plural depending on the context of the sentence.
In this case, some refers back to the singular 'faculty'.

aragonn · Answer

Official Explanation 
Split #1: SV Agreement. There is a subtle SVA issue here. If we are talking about the group of individuals, when do we use the singular verb for the group and when do we use the plural verb for the separate individuals? If whole group, more or less, is acting as a whole in some way, we emphasize the group and use the singular verb: for example, when we discuss what "most" are doing in the first half of the sentence, we use a singular verb. By contrast, if we are discussing how some members of the group are diverging from others and acting in individual ways, then we emphasize the individuals and use the plural verb. For the verb in the underlined section, the plural verb would be preferable. Choices (C) & (D) make a less than optimal choice in choosing the singular verb.

Split #2a: idiom with “willing”. The adjective “willing” take an infinitive: willing to do X. The structure “willing for doing X” is never correct. Choices (D) & (E) make this mistake.

Split #2b: idiom with “extend”. When we give someone a welcome, we say that we extend the welcome to him. Use of “for” in this context is never correct. Choices (A) & (C) & (E) make this mistake.

For all these reasons, (B) is the only possible answer.

FAQ: Can you talk a little more about when to use "is" and "are" for these collective nouns? I'm confused.

Sure! Dealing with agreement with collective nouns can be subtle, because you have to tap into the MEANING of the sentence to make the right call. Specifically,

if the sentence stresses the uniformity or 'togetherness' of the group, then use the singular; 
 if the sentence stresses individual actions (perhaps grouped together, but still regarded as clearly individual), then go with the plural. 
If you are completely in doubt, err on the side of going for the singular option. This is not foolproof, but we find that most often—especially on the GMAT—the bias is toward the singular.

Im279 · Answer

I am really finding it hard to accept how B fits. This question has "some" serious "issues".

navderm · Answer

GMATNinja :
Can you please shed some light on this.

I see that this is a case where 'some' can be interpreted as singular. 
But, if I am reading this sentence with 'is' after 'some', something does not feel right.

Specially because when we say 'some', the concept of collective noun, in my mind gets broken. Now there are some people who are willing and others who aren't.

Also, I do realize there is ellipsis going on here. Does that make any difference? I can't digest 'is' with 'some' the way it's used here. I get that those two go together, but not here.

richirish · Answer

Classic case of testing for rules where it doesn't make any sense. Sorry but this is not a GMAT 700 level question.

GMATE1 · Answer

Dear  GMATNinja ,  GMATNinjaTwo ,  egmat ,  carcass , @DimitryFarber, @sayantanc2k,@MagooshExpert,@ccooley and all other experts I would love for you to review this question as I find it hard to accept that the correct verb is "is". Maybe this is just a strange non-logical exception we have to accept, however that does not change that the logic seems flawed.

A faculty is a singular identiy. It is composed of many members but AS A WHOLE it is singular. HOWEVER, when we use "some" it logically means that we are splitting this singular entity (we do not use the entity "faculty" as a whole anymore) into the next smaller entity, which would be the individual members. Futhermore, some means that we are selecting more than one which means we have multiple members which should use the plural verb.

I realize that my logic most likely is flawed as Mike is an expert and normally I would not doubt him, but I woul appreciate if you could explain where my logic is flawed.

TamaraFernandes97 · Answer

The word some, as with few and many typically takes a plural, also since there is a break in the faculty's decision with some accepting the senator instead of a unified action, shouldn't the plural are be used?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  TamaraFernandes97 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, we agree with your reasoning here; the break in the decision suggests that "some" here is an indefinite pronoun rather than a reference to the noun "faculty"; thus, the plural "are" is more appropriate.

Option C is really the best choice.

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

ManojUP · Answer

This OA defies Standard English usage. With all due respect, the justification given my Mike is invalid. Here is why.

The word "some" can be used as a pronoun, a determiner, or an adverb.

For example: 
I ran into some weirdo on the street. - determiner (used to refer to an unknown entity. For example, an unknown person)
I made some money, selling lemonade. - pronoun (used to refer to an uncertain amount)

In this question, we are using the word "some" as a standalone pronoun. Yes! Most, Any, None, All, and Some can take a signular or plural depending on the noun attached to these pronouns.

For example:
Some people are dishonest. (people demands the plural usage)
Some money is missing. (money demands the singular usage)

But if the word "some" as a standalone pronoun is used to specify an uncertain number of something from even a particular collective group, it should be used in the plural as it is "an uncertain number" and the uncertain number definitely isn't singular because if we want to refer to one, then we just have to use "a" or "an"

For example:
Most of the class was happy with the lecture. (in this sentence when we say the class is happy, logically it's not the physical classroom that's happy but rather the members of the class as a collective.)

So if we write,
Most of the class was happy with the lecture, but some were unconvinced.

We have to use the plural "were" because we are referring to some unspecified number of class members who were unconvinced.

In the OP, the university's faculty is the body of faculty members. So if we use a standalone pronoun "some", it would logically refer to the few members of the faculty who were willing to extend him a civil welcome.

P.S. Some is not a pronoun like he, she, it, they for which we use the singular plural noun pronoun matching rule.

jim441 · Answer

I guess some here is talking about members of the faculty rather than faculty. IMO it should be C,

All of the university’s faculty is appalled by the decision to hire as

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All of the university’s faculty is appalled by the decision to hire as

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