SAT Writing Verb Questions

what question does "agreement" answer?

singular or plural?

what question does "tense" answer?

when? - past present or future

what do singular verbs end in

-s (e.g. it makes)

what do plural verbs end in

do not end in -s (e.g. they make)

what do singular nouns end in

do not end in -s (e.g. the book)

what do plural nouns end in

-s (e.g. the books)

first distraction question type for subject-verb

subject -- non-essential clause -- verb

Incorrect: Green tea with mint, [which is a popular drink in many Middle Eastern countries] , are said to have many health benefits.

Correct: Green tea with mint, [which is a popular drink in many Middle Eastern countries] , is said to have many health benefits.

OR

essential clause with "that"

Incorrect: A drink [that is popular in many Middle Eastern countries] are green tea with mint, said to have many health benefits.

Correct: A drink [that is popular in many Middle Eastern countries] is green tea with mint, said to have many health benefits.

second distraction question type for subject-verb

subject -- prepositional phrase -- verb

Incorrect: The patent [for the first mechanical pencils] were granted to Sampson Morgan and John Hawkins in England during the early nineteenth century.

Correct: The patent [for the first mechanical pencils] was granted to Sampson Morgan and John Hawkins in England during the early nineteenth century.

method for all distractions including a phrase in between subject and verb

cross out the phrase to examine subject and verb only

third distraction question type for subject-verb

verb before subject (instead of subject then verb)

may sound odd but make sure to examine sentences strictly in a grammatical sense

compound subject

consists of two nouns (singular or plural) joined by the word and

compound subjects are always singular/plural, so they must ___

always plural, must take plural verbs

singular/plural noun: there is

singular

singular/plural noun: there was

singular

singular/plural noun: there has been

singular

singular/plural noun: there are

plural

singular/plural noun: there were

plural

singular/plural noun: there have been

plural

gerunds take singular/plural verbs when they act as subjects

singular verbs

Incorrect: Playing parlor games such as charades were a popular pastime in the early twentieth century, before the invention of radio and television.

Correct: Playing parlor games such as charades was a popular pastime in the early twentieth century, before the invention of radio and television.

collective nouns are singular/plural

singular

collective noun meaning

nouns that refer to groups of people (e.g. agency, institution, school, committee, jury, city, country, company, university, team)

that, what, or whether as a subject is singular/plural

singular

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: each

singular

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: every

singular

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: much

singular

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: few

plural

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: many

plural

singular/plural indefinite pronoun: none, any

singular (e.g. None of the ten climbers was using supplemental oxygen)

when (n)either and (n)or are paired with two nouns, this must happen.

the verb must agree with the noun before the verb

Correct: Neither Amy Tan nor Maxine Hong Kingston was raised in a literary family, but both became avid readers while growing up near San Francisco.

neither is always singular/plural. explain why

always singular, "neither" is short for "neither one" and "one" is singular by definition

when some/more/most/all are paired with of + singular pronoun, they take singular or plural verbs?

singular

e.g. The state of Florida was the site of some of the first European settlements in North America, yet most of it was unpopulated until the nineteenth century.

what 2 cases do some/more/most/all take plural verbs?

1. when these pronouns appear alone

2. when they are paired with of + plural pronoun

when a sentence includes two verbs in different tenses, each item must have what?

each item must include a separate conjugated verb corresponding to the appropriate tense

Incorrect: The forestry industry has met and continue to meet the growing changes required to stay competitive within a rapidly transforming economy.

Correct: The forestry industry has met and will continue to meet the growing changes required to stay competitive within a rapidly transforming economy.

the words "for, since, over, during" are hints that what tense is required?

present perfect (e.g. has done, has grown) - used for actions that began in the past and are continuing into the present

the phrase "by the time" is an indicator that what tense is required?

past perfect (e.g. had painted, had done, had grown)

when a sentence refers to two finished actions, the past perfect is used to describe only the first/second action

first action (e.g. it would be incorrect to use "had arisen" in this sentence: Many major historical inventions occurred simultaneously in multiple places. Writing, in contrast, had only a few independent origins, and the alphabet _______ only once in history)

should you use would or will in sentences that include a date/time period or event in the past?

would

how is passive voice different from active voice? use a formula to describe this.

active: x does y (shakespeare wrote hamlet)

passive: y is done by x (hamlet was written by shakespeare)

assuming there is no additional error, would an answer with an active or passive construction be correct?

active option usually correct - since passive voice tends to create wordy and awkward constructions likely to signal incorrect answers

identify the subject of this sentence and fill in the blank with [is/are/have been/were]

The presence of brief, high-frequency electrical events generated in the hippocampus ________ believed to

indicate major events in the brain's so-called episodic memory. This type of memory involves important episodes or pieces of information, such as childhood birthday parties or old telephone numbers.

is

(basically, the word "of" indicates the prepositional phrase following it, so therefore "events" is not the subject and rather "presence" is the singular subject)

COMMON MISTAKE: What is the subject in the following sentence? Is it singular or plural?

However, identifying the cellular mechanisms that underlie this process _______ difficult because so many cells and tissues are involved.

Identifying - singular, gerund