The number of people invited to the party fifty but a number of them absent for differe

问题补充：

The number of people invited to the party fifty, but a number of them absent for different reasons.

A. were; was

B. was; was

C. was; were

D. were; were

答案：

A. were; was

B. was; was

(答案→)C. was; were

D. were; were

解析：考查主谓一致:the number of是“…的数量”，谓语是单数，a number of是“许多，大量”后面接可数名词复数，谓语也是复数，句意：被邀请参加会议的人的数量是50人，但很多人因为不同的原因缺席了，选C。