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Question

Difficulty: MediumSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Complete the following sentence by supplying the grammatically correct form of the verb in the blank.

Answer:A comprehensive list of guidelines for the upcoming national examinations 【was】 published by the board yesterday.

Answer

was
The correct verb is 'was' because the head noun of the subject is 'list', which is singular. The intervening prepositional phrases 'of guidelines' and 'for the upcoming national examinations' contain plural nouns, but they do not alter the singular agreement requirement of the main subject.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical subject of the sentence.
The core subject noun phrase is 'A comprehensive list', where the head noun is the singular noun 'list'.
The phrase 'of guidelines for the upcoming national examinations' is a prepositional modifier and does not determine the number of the subject.
2
Match the singular subject with the correct verb form in the past tense.
The singular past auxiliary verb 'was' correctly agrees with the singular subject 'list'.
According to the rules of grammatical concord, a singular subject requires a singular verb regardless of plural nouns inside intervening prepositional phrases.

Key Concept

Subject-Verb Agreement with Intervening Prepositional Modifiers
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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