REVIEWER IN ENGLISH

 Ballads
o Lord Randall – Death
o Bonny Barbara Allan – Unrequited love and guilt
o Get Up and Bar the Door - Stubbornness

SUBJECT VERB AGREEMENT

1. A singular subject (she, Bill, car) takes a singular verb (is, goes, shines), whereas a
plural subject takes a plural verb.
EX. My father has many duties.
These beautiful sarongs are family heirlooms.
2. The verb should still agree with the subject even it is modified by an ofphrase .
Ex. Problems of irrigation affect our rice production.
Talk of huge mosquitoes doesn’t frighten me at all.
3. Do not be deceived by such expressions as including, with, together with, or as well as.
The verb agrees regardless of such intervening words.
Ex. My house, like all other houses, is built differently.
Salih, as well as other boys his age, swims very well.
4. The verb in an or, either/or, or neither/nor sentence agrees with the noun or pronoun
closest to it.
Ex. Neither the plates nor the serving bowl goes on that shelf.
Neither the serving bowl nor the plates go on that shelf.
5. As a general rule, use a plural verb with two or more subjects when they are connected
by and.
Ex. A car and a bike are my means of transportation.
Tom and his brothers are going to the city.
6. Nouns ending in s- but are singular in meaning, such as physics, economics,
mathematics, measles, civics, and news take a singular verb.
Ex. Mathematics is a subject which many students find difficult.
Measles is a disease often fatal to children.
7. Fractions, periods of time, weights, and amounts of money follow certain rules for
subject-predicate agreement. Fractions may take singular or plural verbs depending on
the ofphrase. If the object of the preposition of is singular, the fraction takes a singular
verb: If it is a plural, it takes a plural verb.
Ex. Two-thirds of the farm is planted to coconuts.
One-half of the coconuts are sent to our cousins in the city.
8. Adjectives used as subjects take plural verbs.
Ex. The poor are always with us.
9. Indefinite pronouns such as nobody, each, everyone, another, anyone, and someone
take singular verbs.
Ex. Everyone is delighted with the harvest.
Nobody in our class has tasted a durian.
10. Collective nouns used to denote a unit takes singular verbs; collective nouns used to
refer to the members in the collection take plural verbs.
Ex. The committee is making plans for the fiesta.
The committee do not agree to some proposals.
11. A frequently used pattern combines there as a sort of dummy subject with the linking
verbs is (was) are (were). There is (was) is followed by a singular noun and there are
(were) is followed by a plural noun.
Ex. There is a new teacher in the department.
There are many customs in our province which are different from those in yours.
12. In sentences beginning with it, the word IT is always followed by a singular verb.
 Ex. It was a Tausug who won the gold medal for swimming.
It is people like the Tausugs who produce swimming.
13. The expression THE NUMBER takes a singular verb: the expression A NUMBER takes
a plural verb.
Ex. The number of resorts is large.
A number of students are going on the trip.

Word Formation
 Compounding – a process where two or more words are put together to form a new
word.
o Open compound – living room, school bus, full moon, ice cream
o Closed Compound – rainwater, catwalk, nightfall, jellybean
o Hyphenated Compound – merry-go-round, daughter-in-law, over-the-counter

 Clipping – a process where a word is reduced or shortened without changing the

meaning of a word.
Examples:
o Examination – exam
o Laboratory – lab

 Blending – a process where parts of two or more words are blended to form a new word.
Often, the meaning of the new word is a combination of the meanings of the two words.
Also called as portmanteaus.
Examples:
o Emote + icon = emoticon
o Breakfast + lunch = brunch

Conjunctions
o are words that link other words, phrases, or clauses together.

o Coordinating Conjunctions
 Coordinating conjunctions allow you to join words, phrases, and clauses of
equal grammatical rank in a sentence. The most common coordinating
conjunctions are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so; you can remember
them by using the mnemonic device FANBOYS.

 Example: I’d like pizza or a salad for lunch. We needed a place to

concentrate, so we packed up our things and went to the library. Jesse
didn’t have much money, but she got by.

 Notice the use of the comma when a coordinating conjunction is joining

two independent clauses.