Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train ________ designed...

Sentence Structure

• Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle
• to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle
• to the Komachi bullet train
• [?] designed by twentieth-century industrial designer Kenji Ekuan.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by telling us about some objects:

• "Objects ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train"
  • So we're talking about multiple objects - a variety of things
  • The sentence is giving us specific examples: a soy sauce bottle, a motorcycle, and a bullet train
  • These are different types of objects, but we're considering them as a group

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• was (singular)
• is (singular)
• has been (singular)
• were (plural)

So we're deciding whether we need a singular or plural verb (and which tense).

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• "designed by twentieth-century industrial designer Kenji Ekuan"
  • This tells us who created these objects
  • We're talking about a twentieth-century designer, so we're discussing something that happened in the past

Now let's understand what the complete sentence is telling us:

• Multiple objects (bottle, motorcycle, train) were all designed by the same person, Kenji Ekuan
• This happened in the twentieth century (past time)

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The main subject of the sentence is "Objects" - that's a plural noun
  • Even though the sentence mentions specific singular items (bottle, motorcycle, train), these are just examples
  • The word "ranging from... to... to..." is describing which objects - it's not changing the fact that "Objects" is the subject
• "Objects" is plural, so we need a plural verb
  • Three of our choices (was, is, has been) are singular verbs
  • Only one choice (were) is plural
• We also need past tense because we're talking about a twentieth-century designer

So we need: were - the plural past tense verb that matches "Objects"

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verbs to Subjects When Descriptive Phrases Come Between Them

When a describing phrase comes between a subject and its verb, the verb must still agree with the actual subject - not with any nouns mentioned in the describing phrase (this is called subject-verb agreement in grammar terms).

The pattern looks like this:

Example 1:

• Subject (plural): The students
• Describing phrase: in the advanced chemistry class
• Verb (must be plural): are preparing for the exam
• Correct: "The students in the advanced chemistry class are preparing for the exam"
• Wrong: "The students in the advanced chemistry class is preparing for the exam"

Example 2:

• Subject (singular): The box
• Describing phrase: containing all the documents
• Verb (must be singular): was found
• Correct: "The box containing all the documents was found"
• Wrong: "The box containing all the documents were found"

In this question:

• Subject (plural): Objects
• Describing phrase: ranging from the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle to the Yamaha VMAX motorcycle to the Komachi bullet train
• Verb (must be plural): were designed
• Even though the describing phrase mentions singular items (bottle, motorcycle, train), the subject "Objects" is plural, so we need the plural verb "were"