grammar, difference between verb-subject agreement

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

hi guys,

As children mature, they develop {an independence} that their parents, who have been responsible for them since they were born, often find difficult to accept.
and
In addition to having a theoretical understanding of disease, medical students must have experience in treating patients if { he or she is} to learn to diagnose illnesses accurately

ok, for these questions what would be the essential difference for their subjects because for the first one i picked an independence, but it was no error. another CC member said that the an independence is correct because the development of independence is for each children. However for the 2nd one, if i used that logic wouldn’t it still be each medical student have to learn to diagnose illness accurately?

cheers

2

Actually “an independence” is correct because it is a TYPE of independence–just as one might refer to a culture or society as “a people” or a particular kind of wisdom as “a wisdom” (“he has a wisdom beyond his years”). It’s not an s-v matter at all–it’s noun/number agreement, and it’s a bit of an exception.

The second one is also not an s-v question–it’s pronoun. The antecedent is “students,” so the pronoun must be plural (“they”). “He or she” is singular.