Subject–Verb Agreement Quiz, Part 3: Can You Get 10/10?

 

1. One in ten high seniors ____ to study education at university.

One is singular, so the verb is singular: wants.

2. Commercial after commercial ____ thin, beautiful young women promoting expensive products.

In the expression commercial after commercial, the repeated singular noun is treated as singular.

3. A bottle of red wine paired with the finest cheese ____ an excellent gift for dinner guests.

The head noun is bottle, not wine. Bottle is singular, so the verb is singular: is.

4. The urgent need to control and a desire to seduce ____, of course, powerful traits of a comedian as well as those of a critic.

Two separate subjects joined by and take a plural verb.

5. The administration's refusal to put in place cost-saving measures ____ the reason that some finance department employees resigned.

The head noun is refusal, which is singular. The plural noun measures does not control the verb.

6. As a psychology major in college, Evan discovers that reading journals that he kept as a boy ____ him to understand his childhood differently.

A gerund phrase used as the subject is normally treated as singular.

7. Plus-sized apparel, including clothes larger than the average U.S. size range of 2 to 12 for women, ____ up a growing part of the market.

Apparel is an uncountable noun and takes a singular verb.

8. The number of minutes offered in mobile plans ____ changed considerably over the past decade.

The number of takes a singular verb.

9. A higher number of applicants ____ expected to apply next year.

A number of + plural noun normally takes a plural verb because the focus is on the individual people or things.

10. An average of thirty-five students ____ absent from school each day.

With an average of + plural noun, the verb can agree with the plural noun when the sentence describes the individual members of the group.

Score: 0 / 10

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