Question: Sunnycrest Farm

Comment on Sunnycrest Farm

the verb phrase "can help provide" is in plural form, so is the subject "neither vast amount of sunshine nor a large workforce" singular??. if so should the verb be "provides" instead ??
gmat-admin's picture

Certain verbs (see, hear, watch, make, help) can be combined with the bare infinitive, the infinitive form of a verb with the to omitted.

The typical construction is SPECIAL VERB + DIRECT OBJECT + BARE INFINITIVE:

- John heard the dog bark. ("bark" = bare infinitive, "to bark" with the "to" omitted)

- Susan is watching her son play baseball. ("play" = bare infinitive, "to play" with the "to" omitted)

So, "can help provide" is not really in plural form. The structure will be the same either way.
For example, we can write "He (singular) can help provide," or "They (plural) can help provide."

This concept is not tested on the GMAT.

I still didn't get why B is not correct? vast amount of sunshine and number of workers seem to be parallel to me. They shouldn't affect each other
gmat-admin's picture

This comes down to intended meaning. The original sentence is conveying two ideas:

1) having A LOT OF sunshine will not make the farm financially viable
2) having A LOT OF workers will not make the farm financially viable.

Answer choice B conveys only idea #1. It conveys that idea that having A LOT OF sunshine will not make the farm financially viable. It does this by saying "vast amounts of sunshine."

However, answer choice B does not convey the idea #2. It doesn't mention anything about the SIZE of the workers. It just says "number" of workers.

Hi Brent,

In the question it is given as "no amount of sunshine". This does not give any numerical value or does not mention anything about the size of sunshine, it simply says NO AMOUNT of subshine i.e there should be ZERO sunshine.
Then how can "A LOT of sunshine" be the right answer?
gmat-admin's picture

Interesting question. When we say "no amount of sunshine...can help," we aren't saying that zero rays of sunshine can help. We're saying that no quantity of sunshine can help.

In other words, "A TINY AMOUNT of sunshine ...will not help" and even "A LOT of sunshine...will not help."

Brent,

Sorry, but I didn't understand this question. Could you explain in another way or with other examples?
gmat-admin's picture

Which question are you referring to?

shouldn't we eliminate B, C, and E because the noun"owners" doesn't touch the prepositional phrase? isn't it more appropriate to bring "owners" closer to "After careful deliberation". or that is not good enough reason?
gmat-admin's picture

No, that's not a good enough reason. For example, in B, it's perfectly acceptable to start with "After careful deliberation, the Sunnycrest Farm owners..."

Dear Brent, I think I have different point of view about this question, especially in the change of "no amount of sunshine" VS "neither vast amount of sunshine".

1. "No amount of sunshine can help provide the crop yield..."
It means that whatever the amount of sunshine, it will be useless.

2. "Neither vast amount of sunshine can help provide the crop yield..."
It means that maybe a little amount of sunshine can help.

Based on this approach, I first eliminated the answer B and D. How do you think?

Thanks in advance!
gmat-admin's picture

Great question! I can 100% see what you mean; it does seem that "Neither vast amount of sunshine can help..." implies a small amount of sunshine might help.

However, think about it this way. Let's say that Joe is an honest police officer who cannot be bribed.

So, I might say, "Neither vast amounts of money nor physical threats will dissuade Joe from doing the right thing."

So, vast amounts of money won't work. Does this mean a small amount of money might work? No.

hello
Is it correct if I change " number of "to "a number of"in answer B?
gmat-admin's picture

Your question concerns the difference between THE (definite article) and A (indefinite article)

So, for example, if I ask you to "Hand me THE pencil," I'm referring to one SPECIFIC pencil.

If I ask you to "Hand me A pencil," I'm referring to ANY pencil.

The usage of THE in the sentence (in the above video question) is somewhat tricky, because it SEEMS to be referring to ANY amount of sunshine. However, it is actually referring to a wide variety of SPECIFIC amounts of sunshine.

So, for example, 12 hours of sunshine will not be enough to make the farm financially viable.

Likewise, 50 hours of sunshine will not be enough.

And 100 hours of sunshine will not be enough.

Etc.

In other words, THE amount of sunshine will not be enough.

IMPORTANT: I've never seen a question on the GMAT that requires you to know how to properly use THE and A, so don't worry about it.

Hi Brent! Maybe it's cultural... but "Neither vast amounts of sunshine nor number of workers"... sounded to me as if it meant "Nor number of workers"... Doesn't matter if it is "1,2,1000"... Wouldn't that make sense? For instance "No number of soldiers is going to fix this situation" - Isn't that sentence correct?

Oh! Sorry I think I just understood it. Basically if I switch "Concluded that neither number of workers nor vast amounts of sunshine can help..." then it is easier for me to see that "number of workers" on its own is not enough.
gmat-admin's picture

Okay, sounds good.

I feel like answer choice D changing the meaning of the original sentence. The OS says that no amount of sunshine can help and D says that a large amount of sunshine can not help. This may be affectively the same thing as far as the farm is concerned, because they may not even be able to get a large amount of sunshine, but isn't this a completely different meaning?
gmat-admin's picture

Great question.
Although the two sentences look different, they both have similar meanings.
Here's an example: If I say no amount of money will get me to eat broccoli, I'm really saying that, even if you offered me a huge amount of money, I would still not eat the broccoli.

Here's an official question with a similar structure: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-commission-acknowledged-that-no-amount-of...

Hi Brent, at video 1:30, could you elaborate a bit more what's the issue with subject meant to correspond to verb phrase here please? Do you mean subject verb agreement? Which is pluraral Subject with plural verb is ok here right? Thanks
gmat-admin's picture

Consider this analogous sentence: Joe concluded that no matter how many people attend he will definitely have a good time at the party.

If we remove "no matter how many people attend," we still have a complete sentence: Joe concluded that he will definitely have a good time at the party.

Now let's take answer choice E, "After careful deliberation, the owners of Sunnycrest Farm concluded that no matter the amount of sunshine or the number of workers can help provide the crop yields necessary for the farm to remain financially viable" and remove "no matter the amount of sunshine or the number of workers," we are left with the incomplete sentence "After careful deliberation, the owners of Sunnycrest Farm concluded that can help provide the crop yields necessary for the farm to remain financially viable"

In this incomplete sentence we have no noun performing the action of PROVIDING (the crop yields)

Thanks Brent. Wouldn't this be the same case with D too if we remove the part "neither....workforce"? Have I missed something here?
gmat-admin's picture

The problem is that the general structure of choice D is different from the general structure of choice E.

In D, both parts of "neither X nor Y" apply to the end of the sentence. That is:
- vast amounts of sunshine cannot help provide the crop yields necessary....
- a large workforce cannot help provide the crop yields necessary....
This works!

The same structure doesn't apply to the E.
In E, we have "... no matter the amount of X or Y, etc.

Thanks Brent. Could you elaborate a bit more of E why is "... no matter the amount of X or Y," do not apply to the whole sentence? Thanks
gmat-admin's picture

For E to be correct, our sentence needs to be in the following form: The owners concluded that no matter what happens, some NOUN will perform some VERB.
Some examples:
The owners concluded that no matter what happens, the SUN will SHINE.
The owners concluded that no matter what happens, DOGS will still CHASE cats.

In E, we have: The owners concluded that no matter what happens, can help PROVIDE the necessary crop yields.
As you can see, we're missing the NOUN that performs the verb.

Brilliant thanks Brent. So due to "no matter", "what happens" is > the amount of sunshine or the number of workers, therefore we are missing a NOUN here to perform....can help provide..... Is my understanding correct? Thanks Brent
gmat-admin's picture

That's correct

Brilliant thanks Bernt.Really appreciated your great helps always until we make sense all the nitty gritty of the issues. You're a STAR.
gmat-admin's picture

Thanks, Kimberly750!

Hi Brent, to clarify we can eliminate E based on the number of workers too right? As it didn't convey quantity of workers as in B?
gmat-admin's picture

Since WORKERS is a countable noun, it is correct to say the NUMBER of WORKERS.
So, we can't eliminate E on that account.

Thanks Brent. Is this due to neither nor in B but E is no....or.....as only difference I found is *the* in front of NUMBER of WORKERS between B and E here?
gmat-admin's picture

Sorry, I misread your initial question as referring to answer choice C (not B)
That said, we can't eliminate E using the same logic we used for B.

Great thanks Brent. My query is being clarified by your other replies above now. Thanks

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