English · Grammar · SSC & HSC
Subject-Verb Agreement — Rules, Examples & Exercise
How to make the verb agree with its subject, including the collective, compound and tricky cases.
Subject-verb agreement means the verb must match its subject in number and person: a singular subject takes a singular verb, a plural subject a plural verb. The difficulty is never the rule but finding the true subject — words between the subject and verb, inverted word order, and subjects joined by "or", "with" or "as well as" all disguise it.
Where it is set: SSC & HSC English 2nd Paper — Grammar
Find the subject before you choose the verb
The rule itself is simple: a singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb. Almost every mistake comes from misidentifying the subject rather than from misapplying the rule, and exam sentences are built to make the subject hard to see.
The reliable technique is to delete every phrase between the subject and the verb. What remains is the pair that must agree.
- ✗ The quality of the mangoes were good. ✓ The quality of the mangoes was good. — the subject is quality, not mangoes
- ✗ The list of participants have been published. ✓ The list of participants has been published.
Phrases that do not change the number
A phrase attached to the subject may add people or things to the meaning without adding anything to the grammar. The verb continues to agree with the original subject alone.
- with, along with, together with: The teacher, along with his students, was present.
- as well as: Rahim, as well as his brothers, is coming.
- in addition to, besides, including, accompanied by: The manager, including two clerks, was dismissed.
- not, rather than, except: The students, not the teacher, are responsible.
- ✗ Karim along with his friends are going. ✓ Karim along with his friends is going. — the subject is Karim alone
- ✓ The chairman, as well as the members, has signed the paper.
Subjects joined by and, or, nor
Two subjects joined by and normally take a plural verb. But when the two nouns name a single person, a single thing or one combined idea, the verb is singular — and this is one of the small set of rules the board reuses every year.
| Pattern | Verb | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A and B (two separate things) | plural | Rahim and Karim are friends. |
| A and B (one idea or one person) | singular | Bread and butter is my breakfast. |
| Each / every A and B | singular | Every man and woman was present. |
| Either A or B / Neither A nor B | agrees with the nearer | Neither he nor they are guilty. |
| Not only A but also B | agrees with the nearer | Not only the students but also the teacher was late. |
| A with / along with B | agrees with A | The boy with his parents was there. |
- ✓ The poet and philosopher is dead. — one person holding both roles, so singular
- ✓ The poet and the philosopher are dead. — the repeated article makes them two people
Indefinite pronouns, collective nouns and quantities
Some subjects look plural but are grammatically singular, and some look singular but take a plural verb. These are worth learning as three short lists rather than trying to judge them by feel.
- Always singular: each, every, either, neither, one, everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, no one, nobody, anyone, anything.
- Always plural: both, few, many, several, others, and nouns like scissors, trousers, spectacles, people, cattle, police.
- Singular in form but plural in sense: the police are, cattle graze, people say.
- Plural in form but singular in sense: news, physics, mathematics, economics, politics, measles — The news is good.
- A collective noun (team, family, committee, government, jury, class) is singular when acting as one body and plural when its members act separately.
- A phrase of amount, distance or time is singular: Ten kilometres is a long walk. Five thousand taka is enough.
- ✗ The news are very disappointing. ✓ The news is very disappointing. — news is uncountable and singular
- ✓ The committee has decided. / The committee have disagreed among themselves. — one body versus separate members
Inverted and delayed subjects
When the sentence does not begin with its subject, the verb still has to agree with it. Sentences opening with there, here, or a question word hide the subject behind the verb, and questions of this shape are set precisely because the eye reaches the verb first.
- There is / There are: the verb agrees with what follows — There is a book. There are books.
- In a question, find the subject after the auxiliary: Where are the keys?
- With one of the …, the verb is singular because the subject is one: One of the boys is absent.
- But with those who and many of whom, the verb is plural: He is one of the boys who are absent.
- A relative pronoun (who, which, that) takes the number of the noun it refers back to.
- ✗ There is many students in the hall. ✓ There are many students in the hall.
- ✓ One of my friends lives in Dhaka. — the subject is one, so the verb is singular
Practice
Work through these before you check the answers — the reasoning matters more than the answer.
- The quality of these shirts ___ (be) poor.
- Neither the teacher nor the students ___ (be) present.
- Mathematics ___ (be) my favourite subject.
- Each boy and girl ___ (have) been given a prize.
- The police ___ (be) investigating the case.
- One of the students ___ (be) absent today.
- Ten kilometres ___ (be) a long distance to walk.
- Bread and butter ___ (be) a wholesome food.
Answers
- is — the subject is quality.
- were/are — the verb agrees with the nearer subject, students.
- is — plural in form, singular in sense.
- has — “each … and” takes a singular verb.
- are — police takes a plural verb.
- is — the subject is one.
- is — a measured quantity is treated as one unit.
- is — the two nouns name one dish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the subject is quality, which is singular. “Of the mangoes” is a prepositional phrase describing the quality, and a phrase can never contain the subject of a sentence. Delete the phrase and read “The quality … was good” — the agreement then becomes obvious. This deletion test solves most agreement questions.
Plural. “The police are investigating” is correct and “the police is investigating” is not, even though the word has no -s. The same applies to cattle and people. If you need a singular, use “a police officer” or “a policeman”.
The verb agrees with whichever subject is nearer to it. So “Neither he nor they are guilty” is plural because they stands next to the verb, while “Neither they nor he is guilty” is singular for the same reason. Writers often reorder the two subjects deliberately to make the sentence sound natural.
When the members of the group are being thought of as acting individually. “The committee has decided” treats the committee as one body; “The committee have disagreed among themselves” treats it as several people. If the sentence contains a word like among themselves or each other, the plural is usually right.
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