'number of' is singular or plural

[yamini]

'Number of' is singular or plural?

is 'consider as' incorrect?

This is considered as a river - is it wrong?

[RonPurewal]

'The number of' is generally singular. 'A number of', though, is an idiomatic expression that's roughly equivalent to 'several' or 'many', and is therefore plural.

'Consider' can be paired with 'as', but in the sense of 'as' = 'in the capacity of'. For example: 'She had been considered for admission as a Ph.D. candidate, not as an M.D. candidate.' If you're looking at a body of water and deciding that it's a river, you don't need 'as' at all; you can just say 'This is considered a river.'

HTH.

[josephgreer]

Idioms have been my downfall on sample tests. Several colloquial phrases using "to be" in the idiom are incorrect, but sound good to me.

For example, depicted to be vs. depicted as. ('depicted to be' is wrong).


The original post used the sentence: This is considered as a river.

While I agree that "This is considered a river." is cleaner, would it not be okay to also say "This is considered to be a river."?

I'd feel perfectly comfortable using this phrase as well as something like... "Having written the definitive volume on the subject, he is considered to be an authority on subtropical reptiles."

Would the GMAT object to this?

[StaceyKoprince]

Yep, it would. Correct grammar does not use "to be" after consider. Unfortunately, you can't go with what sounds good to you - errors have crept into common usage in the language and the test will test you on those things. You've got to know the rules!