SAT GRAMMAR QUESTION! Early rock and roll music, like jazz and the blues, celebrated....?

Early rock and roll music, like jazz and the blues, celebrated characteristics of urban life that "was once" only disparaged: loud, repetitive sounds were reproduced as raucous melodies and insistent rhythms.








Error in sentence in QUOTATIONS " "








Why is "was once" incorrect?|||The subject for that verb is CHARACTERISTICS. So it needs to be "characteristics ... were once only disparaged."





This is a very common trick on the SAT and ACT ... they put extra words (usually a prepositional phrase) in between the subject and the verb to confuse you. You need to ask yourself: "WHAT was/were once disparaged? Characteristics."|||your noun/subject is CHARACTERISTICS


the prepositional phrase is OF URBAN LIFE





so the answer is CHARACTERISTICS of urban life that WERE once











when i saw this questions, i din't get it beacuse i thought the actual question has quotation marks around WAS ONCE, and you were asking why is that wrong