Question: Preoccupation with Celebrities

Comment on Preoccupation with Celebrities

the modifier starting with 'that' does not touch the noun. Is that fine?
gmat-admin's picture

Yes that's fine. The phrase before it ""devoted to producing figurines and collector plates" is a vital noun modifier.

Dear Brentm in this question and your previous lesson, you have mentioned some cases where S was located after the V - which is uncommon. How we can decide which case we should look the S after the V? I am a li'l bit confuse.

Second question : this industry "is hiring" each month. Is this correct, when we use verb in present continuous ("is hiring") for the regular activities?

Thanks in advance for your kindness! Really really appreciate it.
gmat-admin's picture

First answer: There aren't really cases when the verb should appear before the subject. It's more about the author's preferences. For example, we can also write "Out of Maltania's preoccupation with celebrities, a new industry has emerged...."

Second answer: That sounds fine.

Hi,

I tackled the question slightly differently...by removing fluff and reduced the sentence to...
Out of Maltania's preoccupation blah blah has/have emerged blah blah and chose has as the right answer....
I got the right answer with this but the way the question was solved in the video is completely different...is my method wrong? what did I miss?

Thanks for your help and the awesome videos!
gmat-admin's picture

Removing the fluff to recognize that we need the singular verb "has" sounds like a valid approach to me.

Hi Brent!

Is there are reason this sentence doesn't have a comma after "trinkets"? (Answer D Sentence)
gmat-admin's picture

Great question, Itzel!

NOTE: This concept wouldn't be tested on the GMAT.

We don't have a comma, because the first word after the prepositional phrase ("Out of Maltania's .....trinkets") is the verb phrase HAVE EMERGED.

If, instead, the first word were a NOUN, a could use a comma. For example:
Out of Maltania's preoccupation with celebrities and trinkets, an INDUSTRY has emerged..."

As I said, you won't be tested on this. In fact, there's even disagreement among grammarians about how many words a prepositional phrase must have before it deserves a comma. For example, some say the phrase must have at least 5 words to deserve a comma (so, "AT NOON Joe ate lunch" would be fine for these people.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

I chosen "figurines and collector plates" as a subject that performed the action of verb hire. Then, I picked C. Because SV agreement. Can you elaborate the reason more that I cannot not use "figurines and collector plates" as a subject for verb hire.
gmat-admin's picture

Good question.
Figurines and collector plates cannot perform the act of hiring.

Also notice that "devoted to producing figurines and collector plates" modifies the noun INDUSTRY.

Also, notice that, IF "figurines and collector plates" (plural) were the subject here, then then singular (IS) would not match.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Also, notice that, IF "figurines and collector plates" (plural) were the subject here, then then singular (IS) would not match.
/ In choice C, verb hire agrees with plural subject.
gmat-admin's picture

Sorry, I was looking at answer choice D only.

Yes, C does have agreement, but there's still the bigger issue with having "figurines and collector plates" hiring hundreds of workers.

Doesn´t each month indicate that it is like a "routine", thus demanding the present tense?

And since industry is an undefined entity, wouldn´t it be "are, since it is the companies within the industry that hire the people, not the industry as such?

cheers,

Philipp
gmat-admin's picture

Yes, the present tense IS HIRING is correct.

Although it may be the case that an industry is comprised of many companies, we still need the VERB to match the given SUBJECT.

Notice the many problems that would arise IF WE HAD to take the industries composition into consideration:

- For example, if the is comprised of MANY COMPANIES, and all of those companies hire employees then we'd say "The industry HIRE" to reflect the many companies within the industry.

- But, what if the industry is comprised of just ONE COMPANY, and that company hires employees?
Do we write: "The industry HIRES" to reflect the single company within the industry?

- Or, what if the industry is comprised of just MANY COMPANIES, but just ONE of those companies actually hires employees.
Do we write: "The industry HIRES" to reflect the ONE company that hires, or do we use HIRE?

So, if we go back to the original question, we can see that we'd need to know a lot more about this emerging company in order to determine whether to use HIRE or HIRES.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Thanks for your explanation and examples, that definitely helps!

Cheers,

Philipp

would you help to put the fluff method here? i mixed up.
gmat-admin's picture

(A) Out of Maltania's preoccupation with celebrities and trinkets have emerged a new industry devoted to producing figurines and a collector's plates that are hiring hundreds of workers each month.

"with celebrities and trinkets" is a prepositional phrase modifying preoccupation. So we can ignore it for now.
Likewise, "devoted to producing figurines and a collector's plates" is a participial phrase modifying industry.
So we can ignore this is well.

Can we do this we get: Out of Maltania's preoccupation have emerged a new industry"
A new industry HAVE emerged?
No good.
ELIMINATE A and B

Does that help?

Crystal clear!
I wish i can ace this fluff power.

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