Trick #1: Collective Nouns
Collective Nouns are singular nouns that are made up of multiple (plural)
parts. For example,
"team," "class," "army," "cast," "crew," and "audience"
are collective nouns. Because collective nouns are technically singular,
they always should be paired with singular verbs.
Practice: Spot and correct the errors in the following questions:
That team of soccer players are known to be the roughest in the league.
(The collective noun in this sentence is "team." Therefore,
the sentence should read "That team of soccer players is
known to be the roughest in the league.)
The audience of discerning jazz fans were thoroughly disgusted with
the lounge act billed as "the best thing since early Miles Davis."
This class of high school students spend too much time thinking about the SAT.
(back to top)
Trick #2: Intervening Phrases
"Intervening phrases" is a fancy name given to descriptive words placed
between a subject and its verb.
Oftentimes such phrases can confuse the subject / verb relationship.
For example, what's wrong with the following sentence?
"Tax evasion, a crime which has been documented in many modern novels
and films, remain a relatively common offense."
Here we've got multiple nouns.
What is the subject of the sentence?
In this case it is "tax evasion," a singular noun which thus requires a singular verb.
To help simplify sentences with intervening phrases,
try crossing off the entire descriptive clause between the commas.
It is much easier to spot the error in this sentence:
"Tax evasion remain a relatively common offense."
Once we've simplified the sentence like this, we can see that "remain"
should actually be "remains."
Practice: Try the following questions:
The long plane ride, marred by too many loud passengers and too few beverages,
were thoroughly repugnant.
Many children from that impoverished country never has the opportunities that we do.
All of his novels, which feature the same superficial protagonist,
is much too similar.
(back to top)
Trick #3: Subject After Verb
Oftentimes, the test writers will reverse the normal word order of
a sentence and place the verb before its subject. As with other agreement
issues, try to identify the subject and verb and make sure that they
represent the same number, singular or plural. Try the following example:
Although some people do not enjoy cold weather, there is many skiers who
welcome the winter snow.
Since we have a plural subject (skiers), the sentence should read
"there are many skiers who welcome the winter snow.
(back to top)
