gmat prep SC

Question

Please explain why you chose particular option

3. Greatly influenced by the Protested missionary Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided with the colonists during the American Revolution. 
A. was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided---
B. was alone of the five-nation Iroquois League when they sided
C. alone among the five-nation Iroquois League sided
D. were the only ones out of the five nations of Iroquois League in siding
E. only of the five-nation Iroquois League had sided

Thanks,

tarek99 · Answer

I choose A as my answer.

First of all, the expression "out of" is only used when dealing with numbers, such as 20 out of 100. So that knocks out D. In option B, "when" is not used correctly because it should be used to refer to time, but "League" doesn't refer to time. In option C, the main verb is missing, so what about "the Oneida"?? As for option E, the use of past perfect "had sided" is wrong because we don't have 2 past events, but rather only one-The Oneida sided with the colonists.

hope this helps

pallavi79us · Answer

that is what i thought. But a is not the correct answer. according to the document i have it is C.

tarek99 · Answer

which document? GMAT sets? if so, then don't take its OA's set in stone.

tarek99 · Answer

actually, you could be right. I misread option C. I mistook the "sided" in option C as the past participle, but I just realized that it is a verb indeed. So I can see why it is correct.

AHA! I see why option A is wrong. For example, when we say "The French...", that is considered plural. So "the Oneida " is considered plural here, so "was" is wrong. you might ask "well how can we know that the Oneida refers to a nationality?" well, the sentence has given us the clue, which is the "the  five-nation  Iroquois League."

redbeanaddict · Answer

Understanding of Oneida and Iroquois is critical here. in my case, a person without any background on the american history, this proved to be a tough one for me.

tarek99 · Answer

you're perfectly correct. This type of question would be totally unfair for those who don't know anything about American history.

bigfernhead · Answer

Couldn't agree more. Are test takers are not allowed to challenge some of these BS questions.

goalsnr · Answer

I dont think you need to know the meaning of Oneida or the Iroq.... to naswer this question. Here is my take on this question:

The Q is testing the concept
one of X(plural noun) that/who Y(plural verb)

To verify this concept you can rearrange the main and subordinate clause.
The Oneida, the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided with the colonists during the American Revolution were greatly influenced by the Protested missionary Samuel Kirkland.

A - would have been correct if there were "were" instead of "was"
B - incorrect structure
D -"in siding" -undiomatic
E - wrong -"had sided"

bellcurve · Answer

So far when supporting C "the Oneida" is being compared to "the French." Thus the conclusion the Oneida is plural. But in my opinion "the Oneida" is more comparalbe to "the France" not "the French." One is refering to the country and the other is referring to the citizens. "the Oneida" is referring to the country and not of its citizens, so it should be singular. If it was referring to the citizens the it would be like Oneidians or something like that. Any thoughts?

zura · Answer

Greatly influenced by the Protested missionary Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided with the colonists during the American Revolution. 
A. was the only one of the five-nation Iroquois League who sided (altered/awkward meaning -  only  kirland sided , but here it sounds like all five nation iroquis league sided as well)
B. was alone of the five-nation Iroquois League when they sided - same (only Kirland sided)
C. alone among the five-nation Iroquois League sided - correct 
D. were the only ones out of the five nations of Iroquois League in siding ----
E. only of the five-nation Iroquois League had sided ----

UtterNonsense · Answer

Hence the answer C

nageshshiv · Answer

One of the Plural ( should be correct).

parker · Answer

Tough question. One small correction-- "Protested" should read "Protestant"--this doesn't affect the answer, but just for the record.

I agree that if you knew a little bit about the Oneida, the meaning might be easier to divulge, but the structure still leads us to the answer here.

There are a few words here in the original sentence that tell us our primary split/issue will require unraveling a quantity expression--" only one " and " the five-nation Iroquois ."

When we see any pronoun, that pronoun's antecedent must be  crystal clear and present  in the sentence. " One " is worthy of suspicion in the original sentence...one what? The intended meaning is clearly "nation," but "nation" only occurs here as part of the modifier "five-nation," which describes the Iroquois League. "One" has no proper antecedent, so (A) is  out .

For choice (B), if "Oneida" takes the singular verb "was" it should NOT take the plural pronoun "they"-- Eliminate . (Additionally, the expression "alone of" is unidiomatic)

Choice (C), as tarek99 mentioned above, shifts the structure so that the verb comes at the END of the clause--"along among the five-nation Iroquois League" is now just a long modifying phrase.   Keep it.

Choice (D) has a problem similar to the problem in (A). What does "ones" refer to? If it is plural, it should refer to "individuals" (which is not present in this sentence); if it refers to a "nation" then we shouldn't have the plural verb "were."  Eliminate .

Choice (E) shifts to the past perfect without justification.  Eliminate .

Hope this helps.

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