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Subject Verb Agreement
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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.
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A
but shied away from work-outs that were the essential pre-requisites for what he had sought out to do
💡 Explanation:
Explanation for (1): The subject in this clause is the plural 'work-outs'; which should take a plural verb 'were'.
Explanation for (2): (2) unnecessarily replaces 'that' with 'which'. Since, work-outs are essential pre-requisites, the appropriate usage is 'that'.
Explanation for (3): This option fails to rectify the error of subject-verb agreement and also makes unwarranted change in conjunction from the contrast 'but' to the additive 'and'..
Explanation for (4): (4) unnecessarily replaces 'that' with 'which'. Since, work-outs are essential pre-requisites, the appropriate usage is 'that'.
Justification for (5): The subject in this clause is the plural 'work-outs'; which should take a plural verb 'were'. This option replaces the singular 'that was the essential pre-requisite' with the plural 'that were the essential pre-requisites'. Hence, (5) is the answer.