Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that

Question

Within the first few weeks of school,  the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement  and an abundance of administrative hassle.

(A) the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement 
(B) the new teacher discovered that there were limited parental involvement 
(C) the new teacher discovered limited parental involvement 
(D) the new teacher would discover that there was limited parental involvement 
(E) the new teacher had discovered that there was limited parental involvement

devashish · Accepted Answer

I will go with B definitely.
Reason:
  Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle. 
Here the Sentence can be broken as follows:
Subject: the new teacher
Verb: Discovered
Object Clause: there was limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.

As seen clearly the Object clause has changed the Ordering of Subject. So in the Object clause:
Subject: limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.
Verb: was
Clause: There.

Flipping the Subject and Object in the Object clause:
Limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle WERE there.

So the correct answer is B.

Hopefully I have not confused more than I have explained.

Kurtosis · Answer

Hi  mikemcgarry  /  AryamaDuttaSaikia ,

Can you please help me understand the preference given to option B over option C for this particular question?

Even though I agree that B is grammatically and structurally correct here, I felt C is correct because C is less wordy than B.
C states "Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered A and B". Why is the usage "discovered that" required here?
Also I did not see any grammatical error or meaning error in C. So I picked C as the answer.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Vyshak , C is wrong because the teacher didn't discover the involvement itself. He or she discovered that there wasn't very much involvement!

Having said that, B is a very clunky sentence, and I don't think it would fly on the GMAT! Like many of the non-official Q's making the rounds here, this one is not worth much of our time.

manhasnoname · Answer

Since this is a 700 level question I guess I over thought the question. But I need an explanation to prove myself correct.

"within first few weeks" is one action and "discovered" is another action. Shouldn't past perfect be used here? In other words, why E isn't right?

sayantanc2k · Answer

"Within first few weeks" is not a point of time - past perfect would be appropriate, if the sentence were something as follows:
 By the end of the month, the new teacher had discovered.....

Moreover the verb "was" is wrong - it should be plural:  there WERE limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle.

Therefore E is wrong.

nk9285 · Answer

I think the OA is wrong the correct answer is option A.

sayantanc2k · Answer

No, it is alright: A is wrong because a plural verb is required - there  were  two things: 
1. limited parental involvement 
AND 
2. an abundance of administrative hassle.

suramya26 · Answer

Sir why cant the answer be C.
I agree that B is correct but not convinced why C is wrong

sayantanc2k · Answer

Difficult to eliminate C - the best I can reason is (though not very convincing):

In C it is not clear where the teacher discovered those two things. In B however the idea is better conveyed since option B states "there", which refers to "school".

As I already mentioned, this is not a very solid reasoning, and in my opinion this question does not seem to be very GMAT-like.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that

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