Sentence Correction Question (Guide 8, page 45 #14).

[tomhpae]

Wrong: Tired of practicing, the orchestra decide to walk out on their astonished conductor.

Correct: Tired of practicing, the orchestra decideS to walk out on ITS astonished conductor.

Why is this the correct version as stated in the guide? Shouldn't the decide be turned into DECIDED (past tense) and not decides, since ASTONISHED is a good clue that all the events happened in the past? Using DECIDES doesn't really even sound correct. If I'm wrong, can someone please correct me on this. Thanks. FYI: completely understand why we change THEIR to ITS since Orchestra is a collective noun (i.e. sing.).

Thanks!

[karan13]

hi... let me try this...

dont look at the decide ... catch a bigger flaw... 'their and its'... the orchestra is singular not plural(collective noun is singular eg team, company, organisation, etc)..... cos its singular it can not be 'their'..... so the first is wrong...

also since orchestra is singular we need 'decides' and not 'decide'.

hope it helps...

[karan13]

sorry i dint add y i told you to catch 'its and their' first... cos i consider it as a bigger flaw and easier to catch... so i wud like to eliminate that and then in the last 2 or 3 go for the 'decide and decide'... only purely cos i find easier personaly.... otherwise they are the same type of flaw....

[jnelson0612]

I agree with you that "decided" would be more typical, BUT since the point of this exercise is to match nouns and verbs, we just have to determine whether it should be "decide" or "decides" when matching with orchestra. I'm not crazy about this example for the reason you bring up.

We could use the word "decides" to report what is going on this instance, as if we are observing and commentating. I would certainly prefer "decided" if given the choice.