Tham khảo tài liệu 'wiley publishing inc gmt for dummies episode 1 part 3', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Chapter 3 Applying What You Learned We Hope in Grammar Class Sentence Correction Can t we all just get along Errors in subject-verb and pronoun agreement One of the most fundamental skills in writing is the ability to make the elements of a sentence agree. If your noun is singular and your verb plural you ve got a problem Even in less formal kinds of communication like quick e-mails errors in subject-verb or noun-pronoun agreement can obscure the message you hope to communicate. You can be sure that the GMAT sentence correction problems will contain some agreement errors. Subject-Verb agreement When we say the subjects and verbs agree we don t mean they re having a meeting of minds. We mean that plural subjects pair with plural verbs and singular subjects require singular verbs. Errors in simple constructions are pretty easy to spot. It just doesn t sound right to say He attend classes at the University of Michigan. When the subject isn t simple or obvious finding it gets a little more difficult. For example take a look at this sentence His fixation with commodities markets have grown into several prosperous ventures including a consulting business. The subject is fixation but the prepositional phrase with commodities markets may confuse you into thinking that markets is the subject. Markets is a plural noun so it would take a plural verb if it were the subject. But you know that markets can t be the subject of the sentence because markets is part of a prepositional phrase. It s the object of the preposition with and a noun can t be an object and a subject at the same time. The subject has to be fixation so the verb has rather than have is proper. Focus on the three main elements of any complex sentence by mentally eliminating words and phrases that aren t essential to the sentence s point. Then you can check the subjects and verbs to make sure they agree. For example when you remove the prepositional phrase with commodities markets from the sample sentence we just
