<p>p. 878, #14
The convenience and widespread availability of watercolor paint (account for its popularity) with amateur artists.</p>
<p>a) account for its popularity
b) account for their popularity
c) accounts for its popularity
d) is why it is popular
e) are a reason for its popularity</p>
<p>answer is A, suggesting that the subject "the convenience and widespread availability" is plural.</p>
<p>BUT</p>
<p>on page 846, #14 (ha just noticed it's the same number...)
(Introducing) new ideas and replacing (old ones) (is) always a highly controversial matter, (especially when) there is already tension between an older and a younger generation. No error.</p>
<p>The answer here is E, or no error. This suggests that the subject "introducing new ideas and replacing old ones" is singular.</p>
<p>WHAT?!?!
Could someone please separate these two instances for me?</p>
<p>the its… is a pronoun referring to watercolor paint not the convenience and widespread availability to watercolor paint. And it’s singular not plural.</p>
<p>And number 14 is tricky. While it says two verb actions with an and, it’s not singular and the answer is c for a couple of reasons. First since after the is “always a highly controversial matter” is the predicate nominative and the predicative nominative is singular it has to be followed by the singular version of ‘to be’ which is is. In more technical terms and the rule with verbs, if it’s two verb actions that are related… such as introducing and replacing the two verbs constitute as a singular subject. However if the two ideas are unrelated such as “Licking lollipops and shooting deer” ARE always highly controversial matters. </p>
<p>I hope i’m right if i still remember it correctly. confirm/deny anyone.</p>
<p>^ You’re right about the second one (wonder who you learned that from ;)) but I think you misunderstood his first question; I think his question is about the word “account,” which implies a plural subject, meaning that convenience and availability form a plural noun, seemingly contradicting the fact that the next sentence has a singular verb even though its subject is composed of two gerunds.</p>
<p>first question: a is right cus the “account” refers to both “convenience” and “availability”, while the possessive thing (its) has to refer to paint. This means that b has to be wrong because it uses "their to describe a singular word. C has “accounts” which cannot go along with convenience and availability. The other 2 are straight up inefficient, not to mention you cant use is to refer to the convenience and availability.</p>
<p>second question: “(Introducing) new ideas and replacing (old ones)” is, as the dude above me states, a gerund, which is a noun that is a verb with -ing (in this case beginnin the sentence), and you have to treat it like a singular noun. The guy above him put it quite nicely, and basically he’s saying that “a controversial matter” tips you off that it’s singular</p>
<p>Pardon my non existent sentence structure and take my bad explanation as a bit of a supplement to the two above me.</p>
<p>The problem is not the sentence uses a gerund; the problem is that the sentence uses two of them connected by “and” for its subject. As post #2 said, licking lollipops and shooting deer <em>are</em> controversial matters. Just because there are gerunds doesn’t force the verb to be singular or plural. </p>
<p>The best guideline anyone has said so far (in another thread concerning p. 846, 13) was that if the gerunds (or nouns) are conceptually linked, then the subject is singular. If not, plural. How do you <em>know</em> or find out whether the nouns/gerunds are conceptually linked? I don’t think there’s a rule for that. </p>
<p>And while the singular “matter” in the second sentence tips you off, in English the verb agrees with the subject, not with the predicate. So you can have predicate nominatives whose nouns are singular while both the subject/verb are marked plural. For example, ask yourself which is better,</p>
<p>(1) “Bananas are an excellent source of potassium.” </p>
<p>or </p>
<p>(2) “Bananas is an excellent source of potassium.”</p>
<p>so to summarize - if the two gerunds refer to a linked action, you can reduce it to a singular group action (kind of like singular pronouns that may refer to plural things; anybody, anything, anyone, everybody, everything, everyone, somebody, something, etc.). However, when gerunds aren’t linked, they count as a plural subject.</p>
:</p>