Virtually undisturbed for the last three centuries on their starkly be

Question

Virtually undisturbed for the last three centuries on their starkly beautiful islands near the edge of the Arctic Circle,  the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that bring warmth  to their harsh environment.

(A) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that bring warmth
(B) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that brings warmth
(C) evolving folkways and a life-style were evolved by the Lofotens inhabitants to bring warmth
(D) evolving folkways and a life-style brought warmth to the Lofotens’ inhabitants as well as
(E) warmth-bringing folkways and life-styles have been evolved by the inhabitants of the Lofotens

A or B: Only Answers with reasonings are allowed

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

Looks like there are a few questions about this one, so I thought I'd weigh in.

Virtually undisturbed for the last three centuries on their starkly beautiful islands near the edge of the Arctic Circle, the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that bring warmth to their harsh environment.
(A) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that bring warmth
(B) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that brings warmth
(C) evolving folkways and a life-style were evolved by the Lofotens inhabitants to bring warmth
(D) evolving folkways and a life-style brought warmth to the Lofotens’ inhabitants as well as
(E) warmth-bringing folkways and life-styles have been evolved by the inhabitants of the Lofotens

We have a couple issues here, namely subject-verb agreement and modifiers. We'll start with subject-verb agreement, since that seems to be the heart of the controversy. The split is between "bring" and "brings". Whenever we see a split like this, we should go looking for the subject. And here's the key...whenever you see "AND" separating two possible subjects, your subject is plural.

A few people have wondered if the relative pronoun "that" should mean that only the one subject before it is the subject. But we're always allowed to have compound subjects.

Think about this sentence: "The desk and table that are in her room are going to be given away tomorrow night." You'd never say "The desk and table that is in her room...". The subject here is COMPOUND because of the AND, so it has to be plural. Also, the meaning of the sentence points towards plurality, as both subjects are doing the action of "bringing warmth".

C, D, and E are all wrong because the participial modifier "Undisturbed by..." needs to modify "inhabitants", whereas it modifies "folkways" in those answer choices.

Hope that helps!

-tommy

trivikram · Answer

A compound noun "folkways and a life-style " needs a plural verb "bring"

and A should be it

Vlad77 · Answer

It can be A or B, depending on the sense which is determined by the clause after "that". In this case it looks like A.

dwivedys · Answer

It's a simple question - however just wanted to highlight how prepositional phrases ELONGATE a sentence and make it hard to distinguish and single out the true subject and predicate.

GMATBLACKBELT · Answer

CDE out b/c incorrect modifier.

B is wrong b/c should be bring not brings. "And" causes singular subjects to become plural.

Ans A.

pmenon · Answer

is this always a rigid rule ? i just did this question on the SC1000 set and chose B

rhoeta · Answer

Since the first sentence in modifying inhabitants, the choice needs to start with inhabitants A&B, stick to the Plural.

Stay with A

calvinhobbes · Answer

Thanks Tommy,

I have a follow-up question. So how to make it singular?

Like this way?
1) The table and the chair that are bought from somewhere.
2) The table and the chair, which is bought from somewhere, blah blah blah...

nverma · Answer

Hello Tommy

Can you please explain why "a" before life-style, does not make "life-style" the subject and then we need a singular verb (brings).

In my opinion.

1) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved   folkways and life-style   that   bring   warmth
2) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and   a life-style   that   brings   warmth

I hope, i have made my point clear.

Please clarify. Thanx

seekmba · Answer

Hey Tommy, I have the same question as nverma.

I understood the compound subjects in option (A) but chose (B) because of "a life-style"

(A) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved  folkways and life-style  that  bring  warmth

(B) the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and  a life-style  that  brings  warmth

would appreciate your feedback.

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey All,

Seems like there were a couple of follow-up questions here, which I'm happy to help on.

#1: The first asked how to use a relative pronoun to only refer to one item in a list. As far as I know, there is no way to do this without a bit of ambiguity. Ambiguity is one of those issues that isn't NECESSARILY wrong on the GMAT, but most often is. As an example:

The table and chairs, which I bought at Ikea, are great.

Do we know whether I bought JUST the chairs, or the table and chairs, at Ikea? No. Ambiguous, but probably okay.

The house and the birds, which can't even fly, will be going to my ex-wife in the divorce.

In this case, the which clearly refers to birds, but it's through logical context, not grammar, that we get it. Thus this would still be considered ambiguous, but probably okay (hopefully there's be an answer choice that offered a better solution). Either way, the verb "will" in this example, like the word "are" in the previous example, must be the verbs that go with the compound subject (table and chairs OR house and birds), because the word AND always creates a compound subject.

#2: As for the other question, this involves the use of ARTICLES. Articles are words like "a", "the" and "an". The rules for these are so hardwired into our heads that we sometimes forget they exist. Basically, you have to use articles in certain singular cases:

I have a headache NOT I have headache.
I have the house NOT I have house.

But generally with plural nouns, the article changes the meaning.

I have dogs (general) OR I have the dogs. (specific)

This example has a singular noun (life-style). This requires an article in front of it.

I have a lifestyle NOT I have lifestyle.

This makes answer choice A incorrect anyway. However, articles DO NOT define the number of the noun itself. The fact that there is an "a" before "life-style" is not what makes "life-style" singular. You simply have to put an "a" in front of a singular noun in this case.

Feel free to continue asking follow up questions, but hopefully that made sense. : )

-tommy

galafgon · Answer

Do a verb attached to two nouns connected with an "and" always be plural?

deekshant111 · Answer

Although it looks easy but one might get confused between A and B. In option B,  "that"  refers to lifestyle (immediately before "that"). So,  lifestyle  (singular) is followed by  that  and thus singular  "brings " should be used. But I think in this sentence, "that" refers to  folkways and a life-style . So usage of bring is correct.

rishinric · Answer

Daagh sir, pls clear the answer between a and b...

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

daagh · Answer

rishi,
Yes. Please have no doubts that the compound noun 'folkways and a life style ' does entail the plural"bring' rather than the singular 'brings'. If you want the life-style alone to be referred by the relative pronoun 'that', then you must rewrite the sentence as 'a lifestyle that brings warmth to their harsh environment and folkways.

For more on this, please google the SC question 'Published in Harlem' and in that you can see this concept in full.

Therefore A.

BrendaAnderson · Answer

Yes, you can go with that because this is a very nice option to go with.

ayushgmatclub1 · Answer

What about this sentence - I have bought a notebook and a pen that contains blue ink. Is this sentence wrong? If yes then ok. If no, then option A and B are debatable.

Can someone clarify? Thanks!

shanks2020 · Answer

GMATNinja   AndrewN 
 EducationAisle 
 MartyTargetTestPrep

This is a perfect counter example. Please explain the options A and Options B wrt this example.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Do you mean this example?

That sentence is correct, but the meaning conveyed by the sentence in this question is such that it makes more sense to use the plural "bring."

Here's the original version of the sentence.

Virtually undisturbed for the last three centuries on their starkly beautiful islands near the edge of the Arctic Circle, the inhabitants of the Lofotens have evolved folkways and a life-style that bring warmth to their harsh environment.

Notice that the logical meaning for the sentence to express is not simply that the inhabitants have evolved folkways. Basically any group of people who live together would evolve folkways. So, there wouldn't really be any point to saying simply that they evolved folkways, along with something else, "a life-style that brings warmth."

What makes sense is to say that they evolved two things that bring warmth to their harsh environment, "folkways and a life-style." That fact warrants stating.

I realize that that meaning issue is subtle and that it's not 100 percent clear that the (B) version is incorrect, but the above explains why (B) is considered incorrect even though that notebook and pen sentence is correct.

Virtually undisturbed for the last three centuries on their starkly be

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