Main content
Course: Digital SAT Reading and Writing > Unit 5
Lesson 1: FSS: Subject-verb agreementSubject-verb agreement — worked example
Learn the best way to approach a subject-verb agreement Form, Structure, and Sense question on the SAT. Remember, subjects and their verbs must match in number: singular subjects need singular verbs, and plural subjects need plural verbs. Watch out for nouns within prepositional phrases—the subject is the noun that is doing the verb! Created by David Rheinstrom.
Want to join the conversation?
- Wait, so does that mean a subject would appear before a proposition?
Example: A colony of termites
So, the word "colony" is the "subject" and "of" is the preposition?(15 votes) - Why is "takes" singular? Shouldn't "take" be singular because it doesn't have the "s" at the back? Because many words, for example "phases" is plural because of the "s" at the end. So why is "takes" singular, shouldn't it be plural?(4 votes)
- In the case of verbs, the plural functions typically in the opposite way than common words; they remove the "s" from the verb instead of adding it.
Example:
The dog eats its food
The dogs eat their food(22 votes)
- subject before propoesision ?(1 vote)
- Why is "takes" singular? Shouldn't "take" be singular because it doesn't have the "s" at the back?(0 votes)
- how can i find the subject in a sentence?(0 votes)
- Great video.
How could verbs differ from other languages?(0 votes) - Wait, so does that mean a subject would appear before a proposition?(0 votes)
- what is a easy to tell how one is(0 votes)
- So is it always simple present for facts?(0 votes)
- yes for universal facts(0 votes)
- Does the subject come before the proposition?(0 votes)
- Yes! A subject comes before proposition(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Hey there test takers. Let's take a look at this reading
and writing test question. Because a cycle of lunar phases, blank, 29.5 days to complete, it's possible to observe two
full moons in a single month, one at the beginning, and one at the end. Okay? Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the
conventions of standard English? If you wanna give this one a
try before I break it down, pause the video here. Sweet. Now let's do it together. So it's asking us about the
conventions of standard English, which means our focus should be on the grammar of the sentence, but which grammar
convention is being tested? The choices will help us figure that out. So glancing at the choices I see they're all forms of
the verb to take, right? And let me check, have taken,
take, takes, are taken. They're all in the present tense which tells us all we need to know. This is a subject-verb agreement question. I wanted to check if they
were all present tense because if somewhere in
the past and somewhere in the present that would
make it a verb-tense question. Okay? So, subject verb
agreement questions ask us to match a sentences verb
to the right subject, and that means what's
being tested is a concept called grammatical number, which is to say it's
asking you is the subject of the sentence singular or plural. In English, verbs change depending on the number of the subject. So singular, one dog eats, right? Two dogs eat. The strategy for these questions,
therefore, is very simple. First, we find the
subject of the sentence, the word that is doing the verb in the sentence, performing the action, and then we ask, is that
word singular or plural? Is there one of it or is
there more than one of it? And then you'll match it
to the right verb choice. So let's take the strategy back to the question and look for
the subject of the sentence. Let me read the passage again. Because a cycle of lunar
phases, blank, something to take 29.5 days to complete, it's possible to observe two
full moons in a single month, one at the beginning and one at the end, and okay, this is a complex sentence. It actually has two clauses in it, and is, therefore has two subjects, right? The second clause has
it is, it is the subject and is is the verb, so let's just ignore
everything after the comma. I'll just cross it out. We only want to look at this dependent clause
that begins with because. What's the noun that
completes in 29.5 days? Is it the singular cycle,
or the plural lunar phases? What's doing the taking, right? Check this out. The important thing to note is this, of. Look out for prepositions. It's a cycle. A cycle of what? Lunar phases. So that means that the subject of this clause is cycle, and
cycle is a singular word. One cycle. In fact a cycle, so we're looking for a singular verb. We can do this super quick. Say the subject, and then the verb, and you'll know if it's
singular or plural. Choice. (A) A cycle have taken. Nope. Plural. A cycle take. Nope, plural. A cycle takes singular. Bing. There we go. That's the answer. Let's look at D. A cycle are taking. Nope, that's plural. So C is our answer, right? Once we find the subject and figure out if it's singular or plural, we
can quickly test the choices because only one is going to match. Let's revisit that prepositions
thing over in our top tips. Prepositions. Watch out for 'em. Preposition phrases can make it appear that the subject of a
sentence is a different word than it actually is, as in the sentence, "A colony of termites has
moved into my dining table." Not colony is singular. Termites is plural. The temptation might be to change has moved to have moved because
there are many termites, but the subject of that
sentence is colony. So keep an eye out for those preposition curve
balls and you'll be good to go. Good luck out there. You've got this.