JAMB English Language 2010 Objective — Question 71

Explanation

This has to do with a rule of concord that singular subject takes a singular verb. There is another rule of concord that states that prepositional phrases such as 'in the house', 'of the students', 'in the church', 'of options', etc. do not contain the subject of the verb, that is, we cannot use the underlined objects of the preposition as the subject of the verb, that is, we cannot use the object underlined objects of the preposition as the subject of the verb. In the expression 'a wide range of options', 'options' is used to a prepositional phrase and cannot be used to determine the verb. So in 'a wide range', 'wide' is an adjective modifying the noun 'range'. Consequently, 'range' is the subject of the sentence and it is singular in sense and the sentence deal with an action that happened in the past. Therefore, the verb that must follow the singular subject must be in its past form. 'Was' is the past tense 'is'. The answer then is 'was'.