Question

Correct the underlined part of the sentence, if needed.
Among the many reasons for his defeat in the election was his arrogant assumption that his constituents were incapable of understanding economic conditions, and his unwarranted attack on his chief opponent
(a) was his arrogant assumption that his constituents were incapable of understanding economic conditions
(b) were his arrogant assumption that his constituents were incapable of understanding economic conditions
(c) were his arrogant assumptions that his constituents were incapable of understanding economical conditions
(d) were his arrogant assumption that his constituents would be incapable of understanding economics
(e) was the arrogant assumption that his constituents was incapable of understanding economic conditions

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given statement carefully. Also, read the non-underlined part to understand whether the subject is singular or plural. Thereafter, examine the subject-verb agreement and its appropriate use in the statement.

Complete answer:
 As given in the hint, we need to maintain the subject-verb agreement.
Example- They have many houses. Here, we have used the third person plural verb, ‘have’ with the third person plural pronoun, ‘they’ to form subject-verb agreement.
In the given question- We can conclude that the subject is in the plural form because there are two reasons given in the statement for the candidates defeat. Hence, we need to use the verb ‘were’ in place of ‘was’.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
(a) ‘was his arrogant assumption that his constituents were incapable of understanding economic conditions’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use the singular verb ‘was’ with a plural subject.
(b) ‘were his arrogant assumption that his constituents were incapable of understanding economic conditions’ is the correct option because we use the plural verb ‘were’ with plural subjects.
(c) ‘were his arrogant assumptions that his constituents were incapable of understanding economical conditions’ is an incorrect option because ‘economical’ is an accurate word.
(d) ‘were his arrogant assumption that his constituents would be incapable of understanding economics’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use ‘would be’ to illustrate a past action.
(e) ‘was the arrogant assumption that his constituents was incapable of understanding economic conditions’ is an incorrect option because we cannot use the singular verb ‘was’ with a plural subject. Hence, the correct answer is Option ‘b’.

Note:
 Subject-verb agreement must accord in number. Either both the subject and verb should be singular or both should be plural in number.