Practice English in Mylot

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Problems with subject/verb agreement

Subject/verb agreement is simple: if the subject of a sentence is singular, then the verb must be singular; if the subject of the sentence is plural, then the verb must be plural. An s on a verb usually indicates that a verb is singular, while an s on a noun usually indicates that the noun is plural. (Do not forget irregular plurals of nouns, such as women, children and people).

The boy walks to school.
The boys walk to school.

In the first example the singular subject boy requires a singular verb, walks. In the second example the plural subject boys requires a plural verb, walk.
Although this might seem quite simple, there are a few situations on the TOEFL test when subject/verb agreement can be a little tricky. You should be careful of subject/verb agreement in the following situations:
1.- after prepositional pharses.
2.-after expressions of quantity.
3.-after inverted verbs.
4.- after certain words, such as anybody, everything, no one, something, each, and every.

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