every的用法

tiantian8273

Just share some guidelines for the usage of 'each' & 'every' that I extracted from Manhattan GMAT Verbel Strategy Guide:

''Each'' and ''every'' Signular Sensations

You  just learned that when each or every  is the subject of a sentence, it requires a sigular verb form. The same is true for any subject preceded by the word each or every, For Instance:

1.Every dog HAS paws.

2.Every dog and Cat HAS paws.

3.Each of these shirts IS pretty.

One may mistake the subject of the second and third sentences to be plural. However, because the subject is preceded by each or every,it is considered signuar and therefore requires a singular verb form. Note, however,that when each or every follows a subject, it has no bearing on the verb form. For example:

They each ARE great tennis play.

Here, the plural subject they requires the verb form ARE

So from my understanding,for the answers D & E in OG-89,if we only judge in terms of 'subject-verb agreement' ,the 'has' in E is not gramatically incorrect,yet both answers are flawed for the sentence as a whole because they either fail to use a parallel structure or make comparisons between wrong objects. Both errors are corrected in the best answer C.

In regards to the 'there were' or 'there was' issue, I think the correct choice is dertimined by the actual subject of the sentence.So here computers, rather than the pecentage of computers, is the actual subject of the sentence, and it's illogical to state that 'there was **%...'in the GMAT test because in GMAT 'there be' is normally not used for abstract concepts but for concrete ones. The reason why computers here
        is in plural form is , from my opinion, that the sentence is comparing all the computers owned by students now with those four years ago. 

As for the 'percent' issue discussed in the previous posts, I agree that 'every + Number +Noun'implies certain meanting of percentage,yet to express the same meaning one can use various grammatical structures, for example:

Every 4 students in a class of 16 students HAS three computers/a computer.

one-fourth of the students in a class of 16 students HAVE computers.

Among all the 16 students in the class, 4 (students) of them HAVE computers.

More or less, each of the above three sentences conveys sutle meaning of 'percentage' while the gramatical expressions are different.The key point is what is the real,or say the central subject of each sentence(see words marked in red). Ithink the confusion is generated mainly from the the way how we commonly translate english sentences into chinese ones,a process in which one frequently forcuses more on translating the meaning while neglecting some underlined grammatical elements in the original senttence.