GRADE 12 ENGLISH

HANDOUT – Subject&Verb Agreement

ANSWER KEY
PART A. Choose the most appropriate verb.
1. Athletics ( are / is ) part of most school programs.
2. The number of video rental stores ( seems / seem ) to be decreasing.
3. There ( are / is ) now hundreds of classic books available online for free.
4. One advantage of social networking websites ( are / is ) that they can link groups of friends.
5. Neither bookstores nor the library ( have / has ) the book I want.
6. Netflix, along with Redbox, ( provides / provide ) cheap movie rental options.
7. Each of the children ( take / takes ) the bus to school.
8. The United Nations ( tries / try ) to find peaceful solutions to world problems.
9. Do you believe that looks ( are / is ) more important than character in a partner?
10. The meeting lasted for hours, but nothing ( was / were ) resolved.

PART B. Change the verb in parentheses into the most appropriate form (in SIMPLE PRESENT).
1. Either the press secretary or one of her associates _____is____ (be) to alert the media as soon as possible.
2. Her main interest _____is_____ (be) antique cars.
3. A problem facing many Texas cities _____is_____ (be) how to control killer bees.
4. The expectations of my mother ___encourage___ (encourage) me to succeed in college.
5. My favorite dish ______is_____ (be) spaghetti.
6. At the moment, relief organizations ______are_____ (be) the refugees' best hope.
7. Here ______are____ (be) the files that will supply the necessary documentation for our case.
8. The cutest one of the kittens ____sleeps____ (sleep) all day on the front porch.
9. Before students can enroll in classes, half of the tuition _____is_____ (be) due to the college.
10. None of us _____wants____ (want) to pay that much for an airline ticket.

PART C. Underline the subject of each sentence. Find a mistake and change it (in SIMPLE PRESENT).
1. Memory, the vast mental storehouse containing everything we know, enable us to recognize who
and (usually) where we are when we awaken each morning. ___enables___
2. Most efforts to understand human memory in recent years has used the information-processing
approach. ____have____

3. With this approach, computer science, as well as related fields of study, provide models of the
processes involved in memory. ___provides__

4. Encoding, storage, and retrieval, the processes involved in memory, has to be successfully ____have____
completed before remembering can take place.
5. Encoding, the first of the three processes, involve transforming information into a form that can be ___involves__
stored in memory.

PART D. Complete the following text with the most appropriate verb (in SIMPLE PRESENT).
Learning, one of the most important topics in the field of psychology, ___takes___ (take) place in many different
ways. Learning ____is____ (be) defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior, knowledge, capability, or attitude
that is acquired through experience and cannot be attributed to illness, injury, or maturation. Some parts of this definition
____warrant___ (warrant) further explanation. First, defining learning as a "relatively permanent change" _does not
include_ (not include) temporary changes that could result from illness, fatigue, or fluctuations in mood. Second,
referring to changes that are "acquired through experience" ___excludes___ (exclude) some readily observable changes in
behavior that occur as a result of brain injuries or disease. Also, certain observable changes that occur as individuals grow
and mature ____have____ (have) nothing to do with learning. For example, a young male at puberty _does not learn_
(not learn) to speak in a deeper voice - his voice changes to a lower pitch because of maturation. Psychologists do not
observe learning directly but ____infer___ (infer) that it has occurred. Changes in behavior ___are not___ (not be)
always the result of learning. Often a learned or acquired capability ____is___ (be) demonstrated only when the learner is
motivated to use it.