+HOT Competition 4 Sep/9AM: The epicure has long maintained that her

Question

The epicure has long maintained that  her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures are  the keys to her attainment of true happiness.

A. her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures are

B. her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures is

C. her passion for good food, for fine wine, and for all of life’s other sensual pleasures were

D. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures – each a passion of hers – are

E. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures, all of them were her passions and were

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

Veritas Prep Explanation:

The correct answer is D.

This answer achieves full agreement between the plural compound subject “good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures,” the plural verb “are,” and the plural object “the keys.” Almost all of the other answers fail in at least one of these regards.

Answer A mixes the singular subject “her passion” with the plural verb “are” and the plural object “the keys.” This is incorrect agreement, so Answer A is wrong.

Answer B is trickier, since it mixes the singular subject “her passion” with the singular verb “is.” However, Answer B still includes the plural object “the keys.” It both lacks agreement and makes little sense to say that “her passion is the keys.”

Answer C mixes the singular subject “her passion” with the plural verb “were” and the plural object “the keys.” Additionally, the past tense “were” is at least a little bit odd, suggesting that these things are no longer her passions nor the keys to her attainment of true happiness. Even if “were” were the subjunctive, it would make no sense – there is nothing hypothetical or contrary to fact about what this sentence describes. And the subject “passion” would not agree with the object “keys” in any case.

Answer E changes the structure so that the subject becomes “good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures.” However, this answer fails sentence construction because the clause beginning with “that” lacks a verb and does not form a complete thought; the clause “all of them were her passions…” is a separate independent clause. Additionally, the past tense “were” is at least a little bit odd, suggesting that these things are no longer her passions nor the keys to her attainment of true happiness.

mSKR · Answer

Looking for errors:
1. Passion is Key or A,B and C are KEYS to xx
2. Simple Present Tense is preferred. ( has long maintained) . If past tense, will take a decision if no other error.

A. her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures are
Passion are-wrong Subject Verb Agreement
One passion for attainment ARE ? wrong

B. her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures is
Passion is keys? -wrong
One passion can be keys to multiple factors but not a single factor: her attainment to true happiness

C. her passion for good food, for fine wine, and for all of life’s other sensual pleasures were
Passion for A, passion for B and passion for C were( 3 different passions) WAS the KEY to a SINGLE FACTOR
plural verb makes it wrong
The statement is in general fact; simple present is preferred.-wrong

D. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures – each a passion of hers – are
A,B and C are KEYS to xx - grammatically correct
Logical :Hold on if E is better?

E. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures, all of them were her passions and were
A,B and C, all of them?- wrong sentence construction
All-A,B and C- xx ( could be the right construction)-wrong
(All is one of SANAM pronoun)

Hence D is better choice.

mSKR · Answer

Why can't be the Passion KEYS to multiple factors 
passion is the keys to success, happiness and joy.

Master key is the keys of all locks.
Multiple locks ; multiple keys but master key is one

Please suggest

AnthonyRitz · Answer

But it isn't the "KEYS to multiple factors"; according to the rest of the sentence, it's the "key" to only one factor: "her attainment of true happiness." So a singular subject is multiple keys to a singular object? That's bizarre and uncalled-for, especially in the face of a really nicely expressed correct answer D.

Note that even in your own "master key" example" you treat the master key as singular with the verb "is," so your sentence is nonsensical when you use the plural "keys." It should be "the master key is the key for all locks."

mSKR · Answer

Thanks for the reply. Agreed .

But, i rejected D because :-
 1. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures are the keys to her attainment of true happiness ? Meaning wise, the passion should be the key to attainment of true happiness.
I looked at original sentence and yes, passion is key mentioned as per original statement. 
2. So i rejected D due to change in meaning from original option. ( passion is key)

please suggest sir  AnthonyRitz

AnthonyRitz · Answer

See, a lot of people mentioned this on more than one of the questions I wrote (all of the Veritas ones are mine), but it's a total misconception. There is no rule of the GMAT, whatsoever, that requires the meaning of the chosen answer to match the original meaning of the sentence. Why should it be illogical for "good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures" to be "they keys to ... attainment of true happiness"? It seems like a perfectly plausible concept to me.

JonShukhrat · Answer

Dear  AnthonyRitz

Unless I’m mistaken, “each a passion of hers” is a noun modifier that describes the aforementioned entities. I failed to recognize it at first reading. I would much appreciate if you could point out the official problem upon which this one is based.

Many thanks beforehand.

AnthonyRitz · Answer

This problem is not directly based on any particular official problem. Most of the questions I write are not.

Ripoffs are easier and safer, to be sure, but they're less interesting and useful to students who have done a lot of the official stuff already -- and students who haven't are almost always better off doing the official stuff.

I've seen many thousands of official problems, and I'm quite confident that the problems I've written are things that the GMAT  could  do, so I believe that there is value in this. I do also run all of my questions by multiple other highly talented and respected instructors to confirm that the questions are appropriate, valid, and well-written.

This exact problem, like a few others I wrote for this competition, was inspired by an error mentioned in one of the New York Times' grammar quizzes ( Copy Edit This!  -- strongly recommended!). Specifically, this error:

abhishekmayank · Answer

I still didn't get gist of the issue:

If the SV agreement is driven by Subject then why sentence 1 is wrong and sentence 2 is correct, given evidence is singular :

1. Evidence IS the keys of proof
2. Evidence ARE the keys of proof

Aishyk97 · Answer

This was a tough one for sure.

But I will try to help anyone who needs it.

This important thing to understand is that  for  in this sentence is used to open a prepositional phrase. Even if you remove prepositional phrases the sentence will stand.
On to the options:

The epicure has long maintained that  her passion for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures  are the keys to her attainment of true happiness.

A. her passion  for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures   are  the keys to her attainment of true happiness.

B. her passion  for good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures   is the keys  to her attainment of true happiness.

C. her passion  for good food, for fine wine, and for all of life’s other sensual pleasures   were the keys  to her attainment of true happiness.

Now you can see that options A, B, and C have an SVA error. Options D and E eliminate this error by making the complex subject -  good food, fine wine, and all of life's other sensual pleasures  the subject.

Between option D and E

D. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures – each a passion of hers – are the keys to her attainment of true happiness. 
 Rule: Whatever is between the dashes is removable. So this sentence is correct. 
The epicure has long maintained that good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures  – each a passion of hers –  are the keys to her attainment of true happiness.

E. good food, fine wine, and all of life’s other sensual pleasures, all of them were her passions and were -  We need simple present tense for ongoing events/ habits/ universal truths.

yaygmat · Answer

I am still a bit confused. Why can the answer not be something like:

1. passion for good food
2. fine wine
3. all of life's pleasures
These ARE the Keys to attainment of good life.

Then option A becomes correct! The meaning makes sense too I believe.

AnthonyRitz   GMATNinja   Bunuel   KarishmaB   MartyTargetTestPrep

Aishyk97 · Answer

I’m no expert.
But I believe it is because the way A is constructed makes “passion” the main subject and “are” the main verb leading to SVA error. 
Prepositional phrases are removable from the sentence.

Even if A could be the way you say. That still leaves the sentence open to interpretation.
On the gmat any option that has ambiguity is wrong.

We have option D that clears the SVA entirely.

On the gmat, it is not always the perfect option that you have to look for but the best one from the 5 options.

Just because you have interpreted a sentence in a particular way, does not make the option correct. It must be clear to any reader.

These are just my thoughts but I am not an expert.
I hope it helps you though.

Posted from my mobile device

AnthonyRitz · Answer

Fair point, but at best it's ambiguous parallelism here, and a little weird, if you do it that way. The closest noun to parallel "wine" and "all" is "food," and you're skipping past that. Beyond which, why is it that "her passion for good food" is a key to life's pleasures, but "fine wine" is another key? It's not really as logically parallel if it's "passion (for food), wine, and pleasures" as if it's "food, wine, and pleasures."

So brownie points for cleverness here, but I don't think that reading quite holds up. Compare the sentence about education that I quoted from the New York Times, above, and that the Times cited as a definite error.

Oh, and  Aishyk97  pretty much nailed all of this. Kudos,  Aishyk97 !

KarishmaB · Answer

You can say 'food, wine and other pleasures' are the keys to happiness (plural subject verb)
or
you can say 'passion for food, wine and other pleasures' is the key to happiness. (singular subject verb)
or
you can say 'passion for food, for wine and for other pleasures' are the keys to happiness. (plural subject verb)

Basically, you can say certain objects are the keys (implying consumption of those objects) 
or
you can say how you feel about those objects is the key 
or 
your feelings for those objects are the keys.

But it isn't good to mix and match. "My feeling for food and wine" creates ambiguity. It is "my feeling for  food and wine " or is it "my feeling for food and my feeling for wine" - is it singular or is it plural?
If I MUST mix and match, then I should say "Wine and my feeling for food are ..." to remove ambiguity.

+HOT Competition 4 Sep/9AM: The epicure has long maintained that her

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+HOT Competition 4 Sep/9AM: The epicure has long maintained that her

Prep Toolkit

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

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