SC - Question 10 Kaplan

Question

Hello, 
This question in Kaplan confuses me. 

A group of students who have begun to clean up a park in New York,  believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but to   be returned to its former condition

a) believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but to 
b) believe that the park needs to not be redesigned but to 
c) believes that the park needs not to be redesigned but could 
d) believe that the park needs to be not redesigned but to 
e) believe that the park needs not to be redesigned but that it


A group of students. Is it Singular or Plural ?? 
Kaplan says it is singular but I feel it is plural. Any suggestions?

nero44 · Answer

It's singular. Do it the Jeopardy way:
Who began to clean up a park? The group began to clean up a park... it's not The students began to clan up a park...

remgeo · Answer

Hm.. makes sense. 

But then again, looking it that way, I would have thought in the sentence below, majority of students should be singular. But it is plural. 

The majority of students in this class  are  hardworking.

Can you say why?

nakib77 · Answer

A group is always singular. you can not say that a group are plural, can you? :-D

believe is refering to the group not the students. so, yes it is a 2- 3 split, makes it easier to answer. B, D and E is out because it is using believe for singular A group. C is out because could makes it in the wrong past form. we need present tense here so original sentence is fine. my pick is A.

nakib77 · Answer

if majority refers to plural noun then it is plural .

for example, the majority of the monkeys are lazy.

but when majority is refering to a singular noun then it is singular.

for example, the majority of the pie is gone.

now majority and group are not same. group is a collective noun. whereas 
majority is a plural noun. 

hope it helps.

automan · Answer

B, C, D and E are not parallel. In addition, A group is singular. Therefore A should be right.

duttsit · Answer

to add:
As Paul have explained many times:
A group of students who  have  begun
have here is plural as it is referring to preposition frase "of students" not the group.

FN · Answer

how can you say the group is singular...when you are using have begun...I mean...he have begun...is wrong...he has begun...a group has begun work on XYZ..is singular

a group of students who have , here have is clearly refering to students plural subject...

I would say E is best...

sandalphon · Answer

I would have to agree on th reasoning. If the sentence begins with  have begun , why do you guys want to change the folllowing part after the coma to " believes " i.e. from plural to singular? . The  have begun  was a clear symbol to me that  believe  must folllow. Nevertheless I would choose D because of parallelism.

nero44 · Answer

It's the student s  who  have  begun to clean the park, but  the  group (singular) as a whole, believes....

it would be "believe", if there are several groups.
E.G. the students have been divided into two groups, but both groups  have  finished the assignment in time.
or:
The students of group one  have  finished the assignment.

BUT:
The group of students who were freshmen,  has  outperformed the group of senior students.

srgisunil · Answer

A for me.

A group of students HAS....
Students of a group HAVE....
It all boils down to the Object being talked about.

hkm_gmat · Answer

E for proper subject verb agreement, plural verb is reqd. here !

vc019 · Answer

The catch is "A groups of students  have.... " .. .Hence we need to use the plural. Thus A and D are out.

Out of B, D, E - I think  E is the best choice.

christoph · Answer

"group" can be either plural or singular. if it means the many individual parts of the totality, then its plural, and if it means the totality itself, then its singular. in this case its singular...

taquanghai · Answer

Got A as well. Group can be plural or singular. In this case, only A has the parallel structure.

ywilfred · Answer

I prefer to use singular as the sentence appears to refer to the group alone and not to the members of the group. (the students)

(Duttsit: A group of students who have begun have here is plural as it is referring to preposition frase "of students" not the group.). I'm not sure... what if I said "It is I who have conquered the world". Surly, "I" is singular.

I take A for this one.

HongHu · Answer

My experience is that in GMAT is one choice is wrong, it often have more than one mistakes. So if we are not sure about singular or plaural (singlur, imo) we could look at the other part. "needs to not be" and ""needs to be not" are definitely wrong. This eleminates B and D. And E's use of "but that it" is not parallel, so wrong.

Choosing between A and C, essentially we are choosing from "needs not to ... but to" and "needs not to ... but could". C sounds good too, but I think "needs not to ... but to" should be the correct idom.

So I would choose A.

GMATT73 · Answer

Yes, (A) maintains both infinitive verb parallelism and the correct S-V usage.

HIMALAYA · Answer

A. it should be A because "a group of student" is clearly a singular noun that refers to a group.

probably the confusion here is from the use of verb "have begun". because of this verb, some have confusion that "a group" is plural. this verb is used for students, which is follwed by relative clause "who" and "who" refers to the "students" only, not to "a group of student". 

So A is correct and parralled too. all other choices are either un-paralled or incorrect.

SC - Question 10 Kaplan

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