John was one of the few people to get his hands on an advance ticket

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Could you pls explain whether we use singular or plural verb in sentences like
1. One of the people .....
2. One of the people who....
Also how do we know whether we are talking about that one person among people or all people?

Also, I saw a sentence which said
Acai Berry is one of the healthiest fruits that is widely available on the market.
Shouldn't it be are because that touches fruits?

As Karishma noted, it depends on whether the verb is associated with the subject of the main clause, "one," or the subject of the modifying clause, "who." For example:

"One of Tim's children is currently eating her own custom 'hot dog,' featuring dirt stuffed inside a hot dog bun."

Here the subject is singular - we're talking about "one" child, so the verb is singular too.

But watch what happens if I change the sentence and include a "who" modifier:

One of the children who are in the backyard is eating...

Now we have two sets of subjects and verbs. One of the children is eating, but "who" is describing multiple children in the yard, and so it needs the plural verb "are." Put another way, "is" represents the main verb of the sentence, and "are" is the verb in the modifier (or relative clause if you like technical terms).

Don't simply default to the idea that "who" must touch what it modifies - that isn't always the case. In my example above, we know that "who" modifies the "children" because it wouldn't make any sense for it to modify "one," as the whole point of the modifier is to convey that one child is a member of a larger group in the backyard. If the other children aren't in the backyard, they'd tell us nothing about the child in question, and there's no reason for them to be in the sentence! If the other kids didn't matter to the meaning, we'd just leave them out of the sentence entirely: "The child in the backyard is eating..."

The takeaway: always use context when evaluating subject-agreement. There's no automatic rule that will tell you whether a verb should be paired with the main subject of a sentence, or the subject of a modifying clause.

I hope that helps!

IMO, the answer is wrong.

The logical reasong provided by Veritas prep is also wrong.

You'd ideally see the the statement as

John, was one of the few people, to get his hands on a U2 ticket..........

John is singular.
He will get his hands on a ticket,
Was one of the few people really doesn't concern us.

Another example:
"I am one of the many to get an award for my bravery. :

The many didn't get an award for my bravery

It isn't "I am one of the many to get an award for their bravery. "

Logically speaking why should I get an award for anyone else's bravery.

Hi experts,

I have the same problems about the number of tickets.
I can get this Novel Prize example. But, if everything after the infinitive to refers to each member of the preceding group, as this expert pointed out, should not this U2 sentence be "John was one of the few people to get his or her hand on an advanced ticket?" How does the "to get their hands on a ticket" refer to each member of the group? I am so confused.

I actually chose (C) for this question, but my idea was that everything after the infinitive to refers to the whole group (the few people). Could some expert explain more clearly why we do not say "John was one of the few people to get their hand on advanced tickets"? Many thanks!

Hello GraceSCKao,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

To clarify, in this sentence, the infinitive verb form phrase ("to get their hands on") refers back to the plural noun phrase "few people", as a whole, not to each person individually.

The intended meaning is that there are people who managed to get a ticket, and John is one of these people.

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

Hi ExpertsGlobal5

Thank you so much for your quick response! My question was partially solved--yes, it seems to make more sense to have the infinitive phrase refer to the whole group instead of each member in the group.

Still, could you elaborate why we need to use "a ticket" instead of "tickets"?

If this sentence were "John was one of the few people to get an advanced ticket of U2's concert," the use of the singular ticket would not bother me, and the sentence would be just like the Noble prize example ("Obama is one of the few American politicians to win a Nobel Peace Prize.") However, since the correct answer uses "their hands" (plural) before "an advanced ticket" (singular), it seems odd to me. Are the few people going to share one ticket? It would be illogical.

On the other hand, would it be wrong in the GMAT world if I say "to get their hands on tickets fo the U2's concert?"

Thank in advance for your explanation.

BTW, this is not an OG question but I really do not want to face such dilemma in the real exam....

Hi ExpertsGlobal5

Thank you so much for your quick response! My question was partially solved--yes, it seems to make more sense to have the infinitive phrase refer to the whole group instead of each member in the group.

Still, could you elaborate why we need to use "a ticket" instead of "tickets"?

If this sentence were "John was one of the few people to get an advanced ticket of U2's concert," the use of the singular ticket would not bother me, and the sentence would be just like the Noble prize example ("Obama is one of the few American politicians to win a Nobel Peace Prize.") However, since the correct answer uses "their hands" (plural) before "an advanced ticket" (singular), it seems odd to me. Are the few people going to share one ticket? It would be illogical.

On the other hand, would it be wrong in the GMAT world if I say "to get their hands on tickets fo the U2's concert?"

Thank in advance for your explanation.

BTW, this is not an OG question but I really do not want to face such dilemma in the real exam....[/quote]

Hello GraceSCKao,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, although this construction is a bit awkward and ambiguous it is still an acceptable way to convey the intended meaning.

Further, we would like to point out that since all other answer choices have more concrete errors, Option C is still the best answer choice despite this ambiguity.
Remember, on the GMAT you must look for the best of the given answer choices, not a perfect one.

We hope this helps.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

I have the same question too. Can someone please clarify this?