Subject Verb Agreement

Directions: This question presents a sentence, all or part of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others.

Trying to keep himself in fine fettle, he cut down on cakes, drinks, meats but shied away from work-outs that was the essential pre-requisite for what he had sought out to do.