Since the movie was released seventeen UFOs have been sighted in the

Question

Since the movie was released seventeen UFOs have been sighted in the state,   which is more than had been sighted  in the past ten years together.

(A) which is more than had been sighted

(B) more than had been sighted

(C) more than they had sighted

(D) more than had reported sightings

(E) which is more than had reported sightings

sayantanc2k · Accepted Answer

A /E. Wrong - "which" is a relative pronoun and hence must refer to a noun. In this sentence, "which" refers wrongly to the (adjacent) noun "state".

C. The pronoun "they" wrongly refers to "UFOs".

D. The verb "had reported" does not have a subject ("UFOs" cannot report).

The best option among those given is B. The part "more than had been sighted.." is a modifier for the noun "seventeen UFOs". Compare with the following:
I have many issues, more than (the number of issues that) you have.

Similarly,
Seventeen UFOs have been sighted, more than (the numbers of UFOs that) had been sighted....

However the use of past perfect "had been" seems wrong to me. There is no reference of another verb /time before which this verb occurs.

Mislead · Answer

A and E can be eliminated since both use 'which' (can only be used to refer back to noun immediately before comma)

C has a pronoun 'they' which introduces ambiguity in the sentence and has no clear antecedent.
You can replace 'they' with 'the movie' in option 'C' and it will still make sense.

'D' introduces reported which causes parallelism error 'have been sighted' before the comma must be parallel to what comes after more than.

This leaves us to option 'B' which is correct.

Jk8269 · Answer

I try to explain with what I got. This is a case of Active voice vs passive. Here 'they' represents UFO's only but that clause should be in passive voice which is not present in choice B. Because UFOs have to be sighted by someone and it is the not the case that UFOs have sighted in the past ten years.

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Masterclass_Space · Answer

Since the movie was released seventeen UFOs have been sighted in the state,  which is more than had been sighted  in the past ten years together.
(A) which is more than had been sighted (incorrect: tenses error)
Which is …………… in the past ten years: past ten years denote ended action and is denotes existence hence incorrect

(B) more than had been sighted (best option)
Had been denotes action before action or any action that was somewhere in the past

(C) more than they had sighted (incorrect: pronoun error and modifier error)
They doen’t have antecedent. More than they become modifiers and it is modifying state

(D) more than had reported sightings (incorrect: modifier error)
Without a relative pronoun, option D is a modifier and it modifies state.

(E) which is more than had reported sightings (incorrect: the same error as option A has)

VerbalBot · Answer

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Since the movie was released seventeen UFOs have been sighted in the

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Since the movie was released seventeen UFOs have been sighted in the

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