Recession Underway

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While a wealth of data support the belief that there is a recession already under way, some analysts say that conclusive evidence will not be available until next quarter.

Review: Recession Underway


Explanation

Creating a filter: When we read the sentence, we apply the brakes at "wealth of data support." We always check the subject and verb of a sentence, because every sentence must have a subject and verb. The subject is "wealth" and the verb is "support." That's wrong, because "wealth" is grammatically singular, even if its meaning conveys or implies plurality. We know the grammatical subject of the sentence isn't "data" because "data" is an object of the preposition "of." A noun that is the object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a verb; when you are looking for the noun that is the subject of a particular verb, you can ignore prepositional phrases. So, the correct answer probably has "wealth of data supports." Let's check the answer choices.

Applying the filter: We are down to (D) and (E).

Finding objective defectives: (D) is much better than (E). When a sentence expresses an indirect statement -- someone else's belief, assertion, or statement -- it is typically introduced as a clause with the word "that." And that's what's happening here. So the answer must be (D). We confirm that (B) and (C) are bogus. The verb tenses are off, since this belief is a general one, expressed in the present tense, and additionally they use the phrase "there being" and "already being," which are awkward. The correct answer is (D).


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