Question

Simplify the underlined part of the given sentence (if necessary):
None of the attempts to specify the causes of crime explains why most of the people exposed to the alleged causes do not commit crimes and, conversely, why so many of those not so exposed have.

• A. have
• B. has
• C. shall
• D. do
• E. could

Answer 1

The correct option is D do

Contrast or compare is one of the form of parallel structures. This question is based on contrast- '...causes of crime...' sets up the contrast. Here, we are comparing '...most of the people exposed...do not commit crimes' to '....many of those not so exposed...'. The subject 'many' is plural so it absolutely cannot have 'has' as its verb (because has is singular and a plural subject must have a plural verb). Now, the other options do not fit the context as well as option D does. This is so because we need to set up a contrast and it needs to reflect the wordings used earlier in the sentence as closely as possible. Thus, D is the correct answer.