Historians have long debated whether the spectacular

[jnelson0612]

Hello Stacey,

Great Explanation! :)

My question:

Option E:
Historians have long debated whether the spectacular rise and fall of Napoleon in the decades after the French Revolution were the necessary outcome of the political vacuum created by the toppling of the monarchy.

Napoleon's rise and Napoleon's fall are two different events. I agree. Then, should not 'the necessary outcome' be replaced by 'the necessary outcomes'? And should not 'the rise and fall' be replaced by 'the rise and the fall' to make the subject unambiguously plural?

I hope to get a reply soon.

Thanks a lot! :)

Hi ivy,
To answer your questions:
1) I looked back at the original question and answers (see the first post) and the correct answer, E), does in fact use the language "outcomes". So you are absolutely correct there and must have been misreading the answer choices.

2) That's an interesting point. I think the GMAT would say that they are clearly two different events and thus are comprising a plural subject. The article "the" is not necessary to delineate this as plural. Remember, the GMAT will often not make things easier for you. :-)

[Everything OR Nothing]

@Ron:
stylistic preference.
in formal writing, the NOUN1 VERBed by the NOUN2 is preferred to the NOUN1 that the NOUN2 VERBed. you should memorize this preference, as it is essentially invariant throughout the universe of formal english writing.

there are good reasons for it, most notably that it is easier to parse at first sight, but those reasons are irrelevant: the preference exists, and that's all that really matters.

Dear Ron dont you think we should prefer E to C because:

C)outcomes of the political vacuum that the toppled monarchy created vs E)outcomes of the political vacuum created by the toppling of the monarchy

I feel it is the action of toppling which is logically responsible for the outcomes rather than the toppled monarchy itself; so we should prefer E.???

[tim]

I'm not sure what you're asking. The correct answer is indeed E, and Ron explained (and you quoted his explanation) exactly why we should select E.

[Everything OR Nothing]

@Tim , I mean I preferred E over C for other reasons than Ron explained. Am i correct?

C)outcomes of the political vacuum that the toppled monarchy created

E)outcomes of the political vacuum created by the toppling of the monarchy

I feel it is the action of toppling (by someone or some party) which is logically responsible for the outcomes rather than the toppled monarchy itself; so I selected E.???

[jlucero]

@Tim , I mean I preferred E over C for other reasons than Ron explained. Am i correct?

C)outcomes of the political vacuum that the toppled monarchy created

E)outcomes of the political vacuum created by the toppling of the monarchy

I feel it is the action of toppling (by someone or some party) which is logically responsible for the outcomes rather than the toppled monarchy itself; so I selected E.???

I agree with your difference in meaning as well as Ron's point about stylistic preferences.

[Vinay RaM219]

Sorry to say this...But I frankly think that the question is framed incorrectly. ..

the expression 'Rise and fall' is ofcourse plural...But

'the spectacular rise and fall' has to be considered singular....

Because here spectacular seems to act as an adjective for 'rise and fall'.

We wont take the meaning as 'spectacular rise' and 'fall' individually...

So it has to be considered singular..I hope GMAT doesnot give ambiguos questions like these

[tim]

It sounds like you are misinterpreting how to apply parallelism in this case, and using that misinterpretation to justify an assertion that "rise and fall" should be singular in direct opposition to what you *know* to be true about this sentence. The lesson here is that if you *know* what the correct answer is and it doesn't agree with how you interpret the parallelism, that means you need to adjust your understanding of parallelism, not that the GMAT needs to adjust to accommodate your views.

[CHP732]

It sounds like you are misinterpreting how to apply parallelism in this case, and using that misinterpretation to justify an assertion that "rise and fall" should be singular in direct opposition to what you *know* to be true about this sentence. The lesson here is that if you *know* what the correct answer is and it doesn't agree with how you interpret the parallelism, that means you need to adjust your understanding of parallelism, not that the GMAT needs to adjust to accommodate your views.

Hi experts,

Can you please help explain how to judge whether "X and Y" is singular or plural? Because it seems that this combination can possess both the attribute according to different contexts. The following is a excerpt from a Manhattan SC Question:

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire remains a topic of vigorous debate to this day; historians have attributed it to a variety of causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and widespread immorality.
A) have attributed it to a variety of causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and
B) attribute it variously to causes that include military insurrection, ethnic conflict, or
C) variously attribute them to causes including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and
D) have variously attributed them to causes which include military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and
E) attribute them to various causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, as well as

Right here, the "decline and fall" is singular as it "remains".

So back to the original question, why can't the "rise and fall" be singular? Oftentimes, I just stick to such an experience and quickly elimilate the answer consisting of "plural". So could you please explain how to correctly judge whether "X and Y" is singular or plural?

Many thanks!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

This is a subtle point; well done for noticing that apparent inconsistency. However, not that in the question above, the sentence is discussing 'the rise and fall of the Roman Empire' as a single topic - that's why it's treated as singular. If I wanted to discuss them as separate events (e.g. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire were events that I studied at school.) then treating it as plural would be appropriate. Another well-known example is that clearly I'd say 'The United States is a country' because I'm talking about one entity despite the fact that 'States' has an 's' on the end.

My advice to you is to treat 'X and Y' as a compound subject (i.e. as a plural entity) unless some special reason suggests that you shouldn't.

I actually think the question above is well-written, because, even if we ignore this subject-verb split, the phrase 'created by toppling the monarchy' is problematic. Since we're talking about the cause of the rise and fall of Napoleon, the phrase 'the toppling of the monarchy' is more appropriate. Take a while to think about this one - it's a subtle distinction.