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Difficulty: MediumSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Complete the sentence below by supplying the correct form of the verb 'be' that satisfies the rules of subject-verb agreement.

Answer:Not only the school principal but also the guidance counselors 【were】 present at the town hall meeting last night.

Answer

The correct verb to fill the blank is 'were'.
Under the rule of proximity concord, when two subjects are connected by correlative conjunctions such as 'not only ... but also', the verb must agree in number with the noun phrase closest to the blank. Since 'the guidance counselors' is plural and the sentence context specifies past tense ('last night'), the plural past tense verb 'were' is grammatically correct.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the syntactic structure of the subject.
The subject uses the correlative conjunction pair 'Not only ... but also ...' connecting 'the school principal' (singular) and 'the guidance counselors' (plural).
Correlative conjunctions require applying the principle of proximity concord.
2
Apply the rule of proximity concord to select the appropriate verb agreement.
The verb must agree in number with the subject noun phrase closest to it, which is 'the guidance counselors' (plural).
When subjects are joined by 'not only ... but also', the verb agrees with the closer subject element.
3
Select the correct past tense form of the verb 'be' for a plural subject.
The plural past tense verb form required is 'were'.
The temporal marker 'last night' specifies past tense context, making 'were' the grammatically correct choice.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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