Subject Verb Agreement

Link of the Day

Are you confused as to why you have to read things by old dead guys in school?  Here is an article that lets you know how reading quality literature can directly benefit you, even if you do not want to be a writer.  This research will work as a current event example for the SAT if your topic involves the mind or feelings, but it should also motivate you to prepare five literary examples before you take the SAT!

Writing: Identifying Sentence Errors

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E. 

Read the entire sentence to yourself and then ask, “Are there any problems?”  Quickly check each of the underlined portions against the Big 8 Grammar Rules.  When you think you have found an error, mark it and move on.  Make sure that you identify a grammatical error and not just another way to say the same thing.

Although the number of books Awritten in African languages Bare growing, many African writers Cfind a larger audience Dfor works written in Portuguese or English. ENo error

(A) Does it make sense to talk about the number of books “written” in a particular language?  Yes!  Also, the word “in” is the idiomatically correct preposition to introduce what language a book is written “in.”  There is no error here.

(B) When you see a verb, check to see whether it agrees with the subject.  The subject is not “languages.”  The subject is “the number of books.”  The word “books” is plural, which is meant to distract you, from realizing that this particular construction is meant to be singular.  You would never say “the number are growing;” you would say “the number is growing.”  Remember, if you have a construction that talks about “a number” of things, you will always need a plural verb.  If you are talking about “the number of things,” you will always need a singular verb.  The article is important!  Mark this error and quickly look over the other answer choices.

(C) Check to make sure verb agrees with its subject: "writers find."  It does.  This verb is also in present tense, which makes sense in context. There is no error here.

(D)  Idiomatically, the preposition “for” works in this context.  The word “works” can also be used as a noun when you are talking about the works that someone has started or finished.  There is no error here.

(E) This cannot be the correct answer because you already found and marked an error.

The correct answer is (B).

On sat.collegeboard.org, 43% of the responses were correct.

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