<p>Identifying sentence errors question here:</p>
<p>To the disappoint of the crowd, neither the president nor any of his aides (were) able to attend the ceremony.</p>
<p>barron’s says “were” should be “was”. Doesn’t the rule say that the verb “were/was” modifies the closer subject? So shouldn’t “were” correctly modify “aides”?</p>
<p>Yes you are right…but not for the right reason. It should be were, but not because the verb modifies aides, it modifies any. Any is an indefinite pronoun that is singular or plural depending on the noun that it refers to. So any refers to aides, thus any is plural.</p>
<p>any is singular, so it needs to be was.</p>
<p>Any can be singular or plural depending on the context:</p>
<p>Any of the men is capable of lifting the chair. (think of it as “any one”)</p>
<p>This is my first post :)</p>
<p>Thank you so much Crazybandit and Silverturtle. I appreciate the work you’ve done in these threads. It’s been really helpful to me. Specially crazybandit’s thorough and well explained answers and silverturtle’s guide. Thanks to others too. </p>
<p>Now, I had a question which was there in the SAT online course but I didn’t understand why my answer was wrong –> </p>
<p>The annual National Concrete Canoe Competition attracts teams of engineering students [having designed] canoes that promote the versatility of concrete.</p>
<p>(A) having designed
(B) who have designed
(C) for designing
(D) to be designing
(E) and they designed</p>
<p>I ticked for designing. The answer is who have designed.
In my opinion this question can be interpreted in two ways they could have called them for designing the canoes or they could have called the people who designed the canoes (in the past). Both seem correct. But because the question sounded like they were to design these canoes in the competition so I thought to tick for designing. Please answer soon, as I have my SAT in 6 days.</p>
<p>Thanks
~ Akshay.</p>
<p>Question:</p>
<p>Joe and Jim hooked up.</p>
<p>What word(s) best replaces ‘hooked up’ in this sentence?
a) had sexual intercourse.
b) made out.
c) talked.</p>
<p>^Akshay, post #965: The Concrete Canoe Competition is a race. Teams of students have already built the canoes before they arrive. </p>
<p>If the students were designing the canoes at the competition, the better form would be “students who design.” The entire part of the sentence after “attracts” is intended to tell who is attracted.</p>
<p>“Attracts for” is not a common verb/preposition combination in English, although I am sure that people can come up with a valid sentence containing it.</p>
<h1>966</h1>
<p>That question seems to ambiguous, although I think we can rule out (C). However I suspect that isn’t college board material.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply :)</p>
<p>@965, I assume that because it’s a competition, they have already designed their canoe. For instance, if I am selected for a poetry competition I would suspect that “The annual poet competition attracts poets who have written venerable poetry” would work better than “the annual poet competition attracts poets for writing poetry” as the latter sounds more like a poetry class. Thus, I think the problem with “for designing” is that it is not parallel with the noun “competition”</p>
<p>Also, the transitive verb “select” implies that the candidates for the competition are being selected as the most capable out of a wide group (as is the definition of select). If they have not based the selection on anything (who have designed canoes that…) then the sentence does not make sense.</p>
<p>Previously someone mentioned that “former” and “latter” are singular.</p>
<p>“Brand-name prescription drugs are often more familiar to consumers than generic drugs, but the latter are not nearly as expensive than brand-name drugs.”</p>
<p>Is this an error? Could someone please explain?</p>
<p>
I think it was me in this thread who said “former” and “latter” are “singular,” and I was wrong. First of all, they’re not nouns (they’re adjectives), so they’re neither singular nor plural. When you use the article the with an adjective, as in The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, you are referring to an unnamed and omitted noun or noun phrase. In the example I just gave you, the omitted noun is something like people, so the rich means something like the rich people. Hence, the rich takes a plural verb. So the ‘the + adjective’ phrase can be singular or plural depending on what it is referring to.</p>
<p>Neither Billy nor his friends ______(to be) at the fair. </p>
<p>were? was? </p>
<p>I never know what to do in this situation. Billy is singular, but his friends is plural. Which trumps the other?</p>
<p>^were, whichever subject is closest takes precedence.</p>
<p>Neither the cubs nor the mother _______ at the farm.</p>
<p>so its was?</p>
<p>Edit: I just figured it out. Plural always ‘trumps’ no matter where it is, but it should be written closest to the verb anyway.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp[/url]”>http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp</a></p>
<p>look at rules 4-5</p>
<p>From Silverturtle’s Guide:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success.html</a></p>
<p>“Despairing that the performance of the chief executive would ever improve, the corporation’s board of directors took decisive action.”</p>
<p>Why isn’t ever “never”? Or does it not matter?</p>
<p>Are there a lot of diction errors on the SAT. The barrons 2400 has a ton of them… I suck at them haha</p>
<p>4khaos, post #977: To despair is to lose all hope. Therefore, when one despairs that X, the statement X should indicate the desirable outcome, for which all hope has been lost. So “ever” is the correct word in that context.</p>
<p>I’m having some subject-verb agreement difficulties:</p>
<p>“In this critically acclaimed film, there are a well-developed plot and an excellent cast of characters.”
I guess it’s are because the “well-developed plot” and “excellent cast of characters” are linked by “and”, making the whole thing itself plural (the plot AND the cast = plural, together) ?</p>
<p>When does it depend on the closest subject? When they are not joined by “and” or anything else that would make it plural? Like either … or?</p>
<p>Also, I am aware of ambiguous pronouns, but:
“The manager benched the star player after he criticized the player’s lack of intensity.” Why is he ambiguous? Isn’t it obvious that the star player was benched because of his criticism? Or is it because the manager could have benched the star player, who IS the one lacking intensity?
Would it still be ambiguous of “star player” was replaced with “pitcher” and the “the player” was replaced with “the third baseman”?</p>
<p>ex. If it was changed to: “The manager benched the pitcher after he criticized the third baseman’s lack of intensity.” would it still be considered ambiguous?</p>