With its plan to create a wildlife sanctuary out of previously unused

Careful, folks. If "one" or "a number" were part of the subject, we'd want the singular!

The idea is that Sweden is one of a number of nations. Which nations? Nations that are accepting their responsibility.
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The book's explanation's explanation is often inadequate. I can only do so much here, but here's my 2 cents.

Many students have difficulty identifying which is the subject: "one" "a number of" or "industrialized nations"
We know "one" is singular. We know "a number of" is plural (NOT singular as someone mentioned). And of course the word following the phrase "a number of"--which in this case is "industrialized nations" will be plural.

so what do we use? singular or plural?

Well, the keyword here is "that"..By adding the word "that"..you are restricting the scope of industrialized nations you are referring to. You are not referring to ALL industrialized nations, but rather the ones THAT blah blah blah. Therefore, because of the word "that" you must use the plural form.

If the word "that" was not there, then you would use the singular form "is accepting"

But since we do have the word "that" and you are restricting the scope of industrialized nations that you are referring to, you must treat "a number of industrialized nations" as the subject, and use "are accepting"

That leaves us with C, D, and E. Of the three, only "their responsibility" makes sense in the context of "are accepting their responsibility"---you can eliminate C and D. The answer is E.

Again, I can only explain so much in text. This question falls into framework #7 of the GMAT Pill Study Method.

Thanks GMATPill instructor! Your post was really helpful. Just to add my 2 cents: I was really confused as to what is the subject of the sentence. I had thought it was "Sweden" but according to the OA (E) it seemed that "a number of industrial nations" should be the subject instead. (FYI "A number of" is plural vs "The number of" which is singular)

For me, the key to understanding the question was breaking the sentence into 2 parts. The first part is "Sweden is (but) one of a number of industrial nations". Here, the subject is "Sweden" which agrees with the singular verb "is". The second part is "a number of industrial nations that..." The word "that" introduces a relative clause which modifies "a number of industrial nations". Hence, the verb/ pronoun in the relative clause should agree with "a number of industrial nations", and be plural ("are"/ "their") Hope this helps anyone who was as confused as I was!

Choosing between A and E.

Option E- With its plan to create a wildlife sanctuary out of previously unused landfill, Sweden is but one of a number of industrialized nations that are accepting their responsibility to protect endangered species and promote

I agree with E as the correct answer. Notice the wording is "one of a number of industrialized nations that...". For me, this falls into the special category of “one of the/a + plural + relative pronoun”. The verb that comes after the relative pronoun must be plural in this case. Note that outside this special category, “the number” is usually singular, and “a number” is usually plural. For example, the number of students is high. A number of books are on the table.
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Look at the difference between the two examples given below.
Japan, one of a number of top industrialized nations is rich – singular verb because one is the subject.
Japan, one of a number of top industrialized nations that are rich – that modifies the nations and as a relative pronoun stands for the plural nations as a plural subject, entailing a plural verb- are rich-.
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The intended meaning of the sentence is that Industrialized nations ( along with Sweden ) are accepting the responsibility...

So, we need a plural verb for the Plural Noun, Industrialized nations, as such we must use " Their " !!

Hence, among the given options, only (E) is correct !!
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Are we not missing out on parallelism in option E ? I think it should be "are accepting their responsibility to protect endangered species and to promote". Correct me if I'm wrong

It is a part of the rule "Once Out OR Twice In".

Notice, we have to before protect, so we could say 'to' is used for both protect and promote.

If it were like "protect and to promote", it would have been wrong.

I hope that makes sense.
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With its plan to create a wildlife sanctuary out of previously unused landfill,Sweden is but one of a number of industrialized nations that is accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promote conservation

(A) is accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promote (Nations are plural. Therefore, it requires "are").
(B) is accepting its responsibility for protecting endangered species and promoting (Same as A)
(C) are accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promoting (Its is singular)
(D) are accepting of their responsibility to protect endangered species and to promote (Wrong usage)
(E) are accepting their responsibility to protect endangered species and promote (Correct)

Kudos please if you like my explanation.

Hello,
just want to confirm, "one of a number of industrialized nations" will take singular verb or plural verb?
And plz also suggest "one of the number of industrialized nations" will take singular verb or plural verb?

With its plan to create a wildlife sanctuary out of previously unused landfill,Sweden is but one of a number of industrialized nations that is accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promote conservation

(A) is accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promote
(B) is accepting its responsibility for protecting endangered species and promoting
(C) are accepting its responsibility to protect endangered species and promoting
(D) are accepting of their responsibility to protect endangered species and topromote
(E) are accepting their responsibility to protect endangered species and promote

the is and are can be used for the 2-3 split and the pronoun used for the refering of the countires is used,
Sweden is one of the countires ,here the verb should be refering to the countries,

A number of nations = some nations
The number of nations = a number indicating how many nations (a quantity), e.g., 4,5 etc.

One of THE number of nations is wrong.
One of A number of nations is correct.

The latter refers to one single nation ("one") and is hence singular.

Let me put simply like this..
a.This is one of those (article / articles) that (was / were) published last year.

CORRECTION: This is one of those articles that were published last year.

normally we might want to associate ONE... WAS...
But here, THAT as a pronoun refers to ARTICLES... hence we need WERE... also, WERE gives the logically
correct meaning.


b. One of my (girlfriend / girlfriends) (is an IT professional / are IT professionals).

Correction: One of my girlfriends is an IT professional.
Here we are talking about one person only.

She is one of my girlfriends who (is an IT professional / are IT professionals).
CORRECTION: She is one of my friends who are IT professionals.
This might sound awkward... normally we might want to associate ONE... IS...
But here, WHO as a pronoun refers to GIRLFRIENDS... hence we need ARE... also, ARE gives the
logically correct meaning.

Won't it be TO PROTECT.....and TO PROMOTE

The second to is "understood".

are accepting their responsibility to (a) protect endangered species and (b) promote

Also, if you want, you can attempt the official question that this question is based on.
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Note a difference : A number of.... V/s The number of....
A Number of :- is used for Plural
The Number of :- is used for Singular

This helps us to eliminate A and B
In C "to protect" and "promoting" are not parallel
In D "of" is unnecessary and also "to protect".....and ...."to promote" is fine
but Option E looks more concise and it removes the unnecessary "of" also the "to" come out in common "to X and [to] Y"
Hence Option (E) is correct.

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