<p>The chef's dishes, including the mushrooms and truffles dish, which is his speciality, wins many awards</p>
<p>C) the mushrooms and truffles dish, which are his specialty, win many awards
E) the mushrooms and truffles dish, which is his speciality, win many awards</p>
<p>Can anyone explain to me why the answer is E, and not C? I thought if you have ??? AND ??? it's always plural because of the AND, therefore making it ARE ... not IS ... but I guess i'm wrong but I don't get why I'm wrong. Thanks.</p>
<p>The chef’s dishes, including [the mushrooms and truffles dish, which is his specialty], win many awards.</p>
<p>The “mushrooms and truffles” dish is 1 dish. The writer of the sentence is basically saying that the chef’s dishes win many awards, but the MUSHROOMS AND TRUFFLES dish is his specialty, not all of his dishes. You know this because “which is his specialty” comes immediately after the mushrooms and truffles dish is mentioned.</p>
<p>Anyways, I bet anyone on here 20 dollars that cjone will come on here to explain how this problem shows that the SAT sucks, because it has a trick in it. Whether or not the SAT sucks is beside the point; what is important is that this is a common trick. To make subject verb agreements difficult, they include plural nouns and stuff to try to throw you off.</p>
<p>Senior is to quick for me. Took the words out of my mouth. :D</p>
<p>The above explanations seem logical,</p>
<p>the mushrooms and truffles dish is his speciality, because I think which refers to the specific dish. Obscure grammar thing, thank the SAT for testing these things.</p>
<p>You need to find out what which is referring to. Is also agrees with specialty, which is singular.</p>
<p>I think C is the right answer and will need a serious convincing to change my .</p>
<p>The chef’s dishes, including the mushrooms and truffles dish, which is his specialty, wins many awards</p>
<p>C) the mushrooms and truffles dish, which are his specialty, win many awards
E) the mushrooms and truffles dish, which is his speciality, win many awards</p>
<p>the phrase “including the mushrooms and truffle dish” is a noun clause referring to the chef’s dishes. Therefore, you can basically take that phrase out. What wins awards is the “chef’s dishes”, and “the mushrooms and truffle dish” is an example of it.</p>
<p>But I think I just realized what the problem is. the phrase “which is his speciality” changes it. This problem is really tricky and somewhat un-professional. Because how would one really know whether “mushrooms and truffles dish” is sing or plu? I mean you really can say it can both be sing and plu. So this will mess up the IS and ARE. </p>
<p>If this question really is on the SAT, I think it is an example of cultural bias in the question. Truffles are very expensive, and here it helps if you know what they are–that is, would they be combined with mushrooms in a single dish, or not? So, say you’ve never seen a truffle (like me, until I was about 45).</p>
<p>There are two clues in the question to use. Suppose you think it’s two dishes. Then you would follow “truffles dish” by “which are his specialties.” “Are” would not be used with the singular “specialty.” So C is out (Clue 1). Actually, I believe E as in the original post is also out, unless there is a typo and it was intended to read “wins many awards.” The second clue, in my opinion, is a bit more subtle, so there might be disagreement: If the mushrooms and the truffles dish were two separate dishes, then I think that the word “the” should be repeated. Since it’s “the mushrooms and truffles dish,” it’s most likely a single dish.</p>