Subject-verb agreement

Subject-verb agreement questions are very common on the ACT. Knowing the rules for this question type will definitely pay off for you every time you take it.

Subject-verb agreement means that which form of the verb you use is dependent on the subject, specifically, whether it is plural or not.

That may seem like a mouthful. If it does, just remember this:

Correct subject-verb agreement requires you to change the way a verb is written based on whether a subject is singular or plural.

Example

Let’s look at a basic example:

The chef work/works tirelessly at his chosen craft.

Here, we first need to find the subject of the clause or sentence in order to match it correctly. Remember that subjects and verbs go in sets: the subject is the noun that does the verb and the verb is what is being done by the subject. They are defined, in many ways, by each other.

In this case, who is doing the verb work?

It’s the chef, right? So that’s the subject of the sentence. So would we say a chef work or a chef works? Certainly, the second option.

Tah-dah! Not so hard, right?

How the English ACT makes subject-verb agreement difficult

This is the basic principle, but the ACT won’t often be so basic.

Instead, it will throw in a long modifier, like a prepositional phrase (see the Parts of Speech chapter) or a whole clause BETWEEN the subject and the verb. To add to the confusion, whatever noun is next to the verb will usually be of the opposite number than the real subject (if the actual subject is plural, the noun closest to the verb will be singular and vice versa).

This is why we don’t go by what “sounds right” on the ACT English section. Instead, we apply the rule, get it right, KNOW we got it right, and move on.

Example

Let’s look at another example:

The chef that was educated at Kendall College in Chicago along with many other award-winning culinary artists work tirelessly at the craft.

This is the exact same sentence as before, right? Yes, but with a whole lot of extra mess thrown in to confuse. Let’s be clear: this kind of thing happens regularly on the English ACT.

If you go by what “sounds right” you might be tempted to think this sentence is correct as is. After all, the closest noun to the verb work is artists. We would, after all, say that artists work instead of artists works.

The kicker here is that just because artists is the CLOSEST noun to the verb doesn’t make artists the subject that goes WITH that verb (work).

In the sentence about, who is doing the working? Still the chef, as in the example in the beginning. The subject-verb set hasn’t changed. The subordinate clause “that was educated at Kendall College in Chicago along with many other award-winning culinary artists” is one massive modifying clause meant to be a distractor to confuse how the grammar “sounds” to you. Take it all out of the sentence (as you always can with modifiers) and what do you have left?

Let’s come back to the original sentence: The chef work tirelessly at the craft. Now it’s clear that is not correct, and we actually want works as our verb to agree with the subject chef.

Sometimes, identifying that it’s a subject-verb agreement question at all can be tricky. A dead give-away is that among the answer choices, two of them will be the same, but one verb will have an “s” at the end and one won’t.

Follow these steps when you encounter subject-verb questions:

1. Identify the verb
2. Ask yourself “Who or what did this action?” to find the actual subject (remember to remove any prepositional phrases (see the chapter on Parts of Speech), since objects of the preposition can sometimes masquerade as subjects—but they aren’t!
3. See which form of the verb you need to match the subject.

Example

Let’s look at one more example that’s often exactly how it will appear on the ACT:

Each of the people in the various represented countries have gathered their own set of data.

A. NO CHANGE
B. Each of the people in the various represented countries has
C. Each of the people, in the various represented countries have
D. Each of the people in the various, represented countries has

Note that the biggest difference between the answer choices is the presence or absence of commas and the alternating of the verb between has and have. Immediately, that should tell you it is—at least partially—a subject-verb agreement question.

From there, let’s go through the process.

Step 1: Find the verb: The main verb here is gathered, but we remember that has or had is also part of the verb phrase (see the Parts of Speech chapter for a reminder). So the verb is have/has gathered.

Step 2: Find the actual subject of the clause/sentence. Who or what did the gathering? Well, there are three nouns that could be the subject: Each, people, and countries. Let’s remember to take out our prepositional phrases (seriously, go look at the Parts of Speech chapter). They include of the people and in the various represented countries. Our only remaining option is Each. Each is the subject of the sentence and Each has/have gathered is the subject-verb set.

Step 3: If the subject is Each, which verb do we want? Would we say Each have or Each has? Each is a singular noun, so we definitely want the singular verb form has.

The commas are just distractions here.

So, based on what you know, see if you can find the answer.

Each of the people in the various represented countries have gathered their own set of data.

A. NO CHANGE
B. Each of the people in the various represented countries has
C. Each of the people, in the various represented countries have
D. Each of the people in the various, represented countries has

Which answer is correct?

Collective nouns and pronouns

Remember that collective nouns and pronouns, words that represent a group, are always treated as singular. Some examples are group, team, jury, crowd, etc. We would say, for example, “The crowd was getting excited about the close score at the end of the half” NOT “The crowd were getting excited about the close score at the end of the half.”