subject-verb agreement question in text completion

[fbmagnumopus]

Stories are a haunted genre; hardly _____ kind of story, the ghost story is almost the paradigm of the form, and _____ was undoubtedly one effect that Poe had in mind when he wrote about how stories work.

The second blank is goosebumps but is it right to day goosebumps was one effect as opposed to goosebumps were effects or something else in plural?

[tommywallach]

Hey FB,

Nope. You're totally right. That question is wrong! Can you tell me where you saw the question so we can fix it?

-t

[fbmagnumopus]

Tommy, this is a question from the paper based test available in pdf format on the ets website!

[tommywallach]

Well, it's wrong!

The only saving grace would be if ALL the answer choices were plural, so that you couldn't pick a singular word anyway. If not, then it's just a bad question.

-t

[fbmagnumopus]

Yeah the answer choices were all singular unfortunately. That's disappointing considering this is ETS we're talking about - I felt even the whole sentence itself doesnt make sense. I mean since when are stories a haunted genre ?

Thanks anyway !

[tommywallach]

Glad to help. Silly ETS. : )

-t