| How To Master The GMAT Subject Verb Agreement |
| Written by John Christianson |
| Wednesday, 07 July 2010 07:13 |
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The Verbal section test of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is one of the areas that its examinee finds most trouble. Most of the cases, students often struggle with Sentence Correction questions for quite some time. Well, it's not because they can't read, write or speak. Maybe they are not English native speakers. There are also examinees that are actually brilliant, but are uncertain to determine the correct English grammar.
The Verbal section test of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is one of the areas that its examinee finds most trouble. Most of the cases, students often struggle with Sentence Correction questions for quite some time. Well, it's not because they can't read, write or speak. Maybe they are not English native speakers. There are also examinees that are actually brilliant, but are uncertain to determine the correct English grammar. On the GMAT Sentence Correction, common mistakes occur very frequently on the subject verb agreement. The subject verb agreement basic rule is: the subject must agree in number. It seems like a simple rule. Yet, many people get it wrong so many times when writing. Thus, it is very important to be familiar with the subject verb agreement. When writing, listen for the sound of "s." Most people tend to drop the "s" sound when talking, especially in a fast mode. And this resulted to the unconscious dropping of the "s" sound on the word constructions. This common mistake can be easily fixed by following this simple step. The verb should agree with the right subject. Common mistakes happen when someone writes long sentences and get confused on which noun that a verb should agree with. When this occurs, reading the sentence carefully with comprehension will do best to identify the right subject. The collective nouns are not plural. Collective nouns are nouns that refer things or peoples as a unit. Some examples of these are: family, police, class, team, crew and a company. When these collective nouns are inside the sentence, the verb that should be used is singular. Knowing what the subject in a sentence would determine the right verb to use. The general rule states that the subject is usually immediately to the left of the verb. One rule also states that if the subjects are connected with the word "or", use a singular verb. However, if subjects are connected with the word "and", verb should be in the plural form. When in doubt, it should be remembered that the verb agrees with the nearest subject. Also, there are subjects that sound plural, but they actually use singular verbs. These are the word everybody, anybody, no one, somebody, nobody each, either and neither. There is no denying that English has the largest vocabularies in the world. And because of this, one could not expect that learning English grammar specially the subject verb agreement is very easy. However, this should not let GMAT aspirants to be discouraged for there are many GMAT exam resources online that offers exam practice tests in this area. These GMAT exam resources online are of great help especially for someone who needs improvement in subject verb agreement through online and downloadable practice tests. With goal focus and determination, learning the subject verb agreement could be fun and easy. About the Author: The GMAT bootcamp has been helping hundreds of students successfully conquer the GMAT. Find more about how to master GMAT subject verb agreement by visiting http://thegmatbootcamp.com |