Many in the United States believe that the populace should make their voices heard in the political process by researching election issues more thoroughly and voting more regularly.
The answer is C(their voices), what’s wrong with “their voices”??
More than any other film in recent history, the financial success of James Cameron’s Titanic, which grossed over six hundred million dollars at the box office, has changed the way movies are developed and marketed in United States.
the answer is A (the financial success of James Cameron’s Titanic), what’s wrong with it.
Bastion, the very first thing you ought to do when looking at questions is to check the origin of the questions. My take is that you found those questions online, and that they are not in the standard SAT format.
Do yourself a favor and focus on using real SAT questions that have been verified as original and have had plenty of students reviewing before you. This is important as bad questions might lead to bad concepts and end up costing.
Fwiw, populace CAN be either singular or plural depending on the intentions of the … writer. Populace CAN mean “the inhabitants of an area” or “the common people; masses” In fact, in this case, the plural is a BETTER choice as it is obvious that the populace does not have an unified voice or votes as a block. It is expected that the voices would be different!
As far as “More than any other film in recent history, the financial success of James Cameron’s Titanic” it is an issue of the financial success (drop the rest) not relating to the previous part of the sentence (more than any other film) Titanic is the film not the financial success. A correct sentence could have been “More than any other film in recent history, James Cameron’s Titanic, blah blah”
In this context, “the populace” is a collective noun, meaning that we refer to the group singularly. Other collective knowns are “band,” “family,” “group,” and “team.” You would use “its” within this sentence.
“More than any other film in recent history, the financial success of James Cameron’s Titanic, which grossed over six hundred million dollars at the box office…”
Yes, the answer is “the financial success of James Cameron’s Titanic.” Look at the subordinate clause. It says “More than any other film in recent history…” and then “the financial success.” Well, the “financial successes of” is not a movie.
You must say “More than any other film in recent history, TITANIC grossed over 600 million dollars at the box office.” The movie grossed money, if you catch my drift.
That is a faulty interpretation! The rule of collective nouns allows for the use of the singular and the plural. Look at this:
Illogical: The choir WAS happy with ITS new robes.
Logical: The choir WERE happy with THEIR new robes.
Correct: The jury announced its final verdict
Also correct: The jury voiced their different opinions about the verdict.
Again, in this case, it is flimsy at best to believe that the populace will have one lone voice and act as a group as opposed to a group of individuals. You’d have to assume that “researching election issues more thoroughly and voting more regularly” is done as a … group. That does not work well!