SUBJECT VERB AGREEMENT
The subject and verb of a sentence must agree in number.
If a subject is singular, the verb must be in singular form:
He talks fast.
If a subject is plural, the verb must be in plural form:
They talk fast.
There are 4 steps for finding subject verb agreement
- Find the verb or verbs
- Eliminate all descriptive phrases, prepositional phrases, and phrases between dashes and commas. For example, ignore prepositional phrases that begin with “of.”
- Find the subject for each verb
- Make sure the subject an verb agree.
For example:
The study of mathematics (is/are) interesting.
Eliminate phrases.
The study of mathematics (is/are) interesting.
Clearly, the singular subject study requires the singular form is.
The study of mathematics IS interesting.
Only the word “and” can be used to connect two singular subjects to create a plural subject.
For example:
Halloween,Thanksgiving, and Independence Day ARE my favorite holidays.
Although there are other words that can add to the subject, these words don’t create a plural subject.
These words include:
in addition to, along with, as well as
Here is an example:
The Gmat,as well as the SAT exam, IS a standardized test.
This example requires “is.”
All words that can not be counted or mean a group acting together are known as collective nouns.
Examples of collective nouns include:
team, jury,class,family
Collective nouns are always singular and take a singular verb. For example:
The jury IS deliberating.
Most indefinite pronouns are singular.
They begin with: and end with:
any body
some one
no thing
every where
For example:
Everbody IS here.
The following indefinite pronouns can be singular or plural:
some, any, none, most, all
We look at the prepositional phrase beginning with “of” to decide whether the subject is plural or singular.
For example:
Some of cake IS missing.(cake is singular)
Most of the cookies ARE eaten. (cookies is plural)
The following words are also singular:
either,every,each
For example, the following sentence requires the singular verb is.
Each of the girls IS coming.
Phrases that are subjects are always singular.
For example:
Having multiple cars IS great.
The phrase the number of is singular.
The phrase a number of is plural.
The phrase the numbers of is always incorrect.
For example:
The number of students in this class IS seven.
A number of children ARE missing.
For sentences with the construction neither/nor the second subject is the subject of the verb.
For example:
Neither the boys nor the teacher IS here.
Teacher is the second subject and is singular so we use the singular is.
Here’s another:
Neither the teacher nor the boys ARE here.
Boys is the second subject and is plural so we use the plural are.
Switch around sentences that start with there, where, here,or near in order to identify the subject and verb.
For example:
Here (is/are) the boy and his mother.
Switch it to:
The boy and his mother ARE here.
By switching the sentence around so the subject precedes the verb it becomes much clearer.
Subject-Verb Agreement Assignment:
MGMAT: CHAPTER 2
OG 11:1,3,21,34,41,42,52,61,70,90,116,131,138
Verbal Review:8,16,24,34,35,44,59,74,77,102,104
(46)
(28)
(2)