SAT Writing - Subject/Verb Agreement Errors
A verb does not stand by itself- the action has to be done by someone (unless of course the verb isn't acting as a verb at all but is instead a gerund or infinitive and acting as a verbal noun).
Whoever or whatever is doing the verb is called the subject. The subject and the verb must agree with each other, otherwise it is an error. One common error that appears in both Improving Sentences and Identifying Sentence Error questions is this use of a verb that does not agree with it's subject - When a singular subject is used, a singular verb must be used
- For present tense verbs, singular verbs are formed by adding an "s" to the end of the verb
- Ex: Joe looks, The boy runs, The cat eats
- When a plural subject is used, a plural verb must be used
- Present tense plural verbs have no "s" on the end
- The boys look. The girls run. The kittens eat
The SAT will often try to separate a subject from its verb, or deliberately write the sentence to confuse you as to whether a singular subject is doing the action or a plural subject is doing the action. - Ex: The boys, each a smart little fellow, jumps through the hoop
- As you can see, there is a prepositional phrase here that describes the boys. In doing so, they describe each boy singularly (each a smart fellow). Since this prepositional phrase separates the subject from the verb, a student who does not read carefully may think that the singular form jumps is correct.
- The best way to avoid this trick is to bracket our any prepositional phrases, and to ensure that you match up each subject to the action that subject may be doing. If necessary, you can even draw a little line connecting each subject to the action that it is doing to ensure that you use the correct singular/plural form.
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