data singular or plural?

[tankobe]

1# Now that so much data travels via light--i.e., is carried in glass fibers rather than by electrical current--one goal of semiconductor research is to develop a silicon chip that can transmit and receive light signals directly, a development that may one day lead to smaller, faster semiconductors.

2# Data gathered by weather satellites has been analyzed by scientists, reporting that the Earth's northern latitudes have become about ten percent greener since 1980, due to more vigorous plant growth associated with warmer temperatures and higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
(A) Data gathered by weather satellites has been analyzed by scientists, reporting that the Earth's northern latitudes have
(B) Data gathered by weather satellites has been analyzed by scientists, and they report the Earth's northern latitudes as having
(C) After analyzing data gathered by weather satellites, scientists report that the Earth's northern latitudes have
KEY is C

3# Those skeptical of the extent of global warming argue that short-term temperature data are an inadequate means of predicting long-term trends and point out that the scientific community remains divided on whether significant warming will occur and what impact will it have if it does.

THE 3 sentence all come from GMATPrep. what's wrong with date, dose the word plural or singular?

[subhojyoti.it]

Allow me to cclarify on that point
Data is Plural
Datum is singular

if you notice Data has been taken as plural by GMAC is all the correct answers.

regards

S

[AsadA969]

in number 3, it is written that "data ARE AN inadequate". AN is used for singular number and ARE for plural number. here ARE and AN both have been used for DATA, but there is no consistency itself....if data is singular then AN is correct but not ARE and if data is plural then ARE is correct but not AN.

[AsadA969]

i did not get any indication in anywhere that either Data is Plural or Datum is singular.

Now the data is/are being transferred from magnetic tape to hard disk .
The data was/were collected by various researchers.
examples are quoted from Cambridge Dictionary.

[RonPurewal]

a reply after five and a half years... interesting.

TRADITIONALLY, "data" is the plural of "datum".
the common usage of the word "data", though, has evolved to include a singular form-- roughly equivalent to "information"-- as well. (also, in most styles of writing, "datum" has largely been supplanted by "data point".)

in terms of formal usage, this matter is in dispute, so it will NOT be tested on this exam. and that's all that ultimately matters here.

[AsadA969]

Ron, if you get interest from my response after five and a half years , this is surely my pleasure.
Thanks Ron for replying after five and a half years in this thread also !

[RonPurewal]

well, once someone posts on a thread, it becomes "new" again. so, not the same thing.

my point is, really, that i'm curious about how posters even find threads that are so old. (certainly not by random browsing-- they'd be hundreds of pages behind the head page!)

[RonPurewal]

more importantly--
that people are finding and reading (and sometimes replying to) these old threads is a good thing, not a bad thing. it means that all of our cumulative effort in creating these forum threads ("our" = students and moderators alike) is paying dividends.