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Question

Difficulty: MediumSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Which of the following pairs of verb forms correctly completes the sentence below?

'Neither the lead investigator nor the field technicians ________ satisfied with the initial data, as neither of the submitted reports ________ been fully audited.'

  1. A
    was / has
  2. were / hasAnswer
  3. C
    were / have
  4. D
    was / have

Answer

The correct pair of verb forms is 'were / has'.
The option containing 'were / has' correctly satisfies both rules of concord: the proximity rule dictates that 'were' agrees with the nearer plural noun phrase 'field technicians', while the indefinite pronoun rule dictates that 'has' agrees with the singular head pronoun 'neither'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the first clause containing the correlative conjunction 'neither... nor'.
The subjects linked are 'the lead investigator' (singular) and 'the field technicians' (plural).
According to the rule of proximity concord for 'neither... nor', the verb must agree in number with the subject noun phrase closer to it ('the field technicians'), requiring the plural verb 'were'.
2
Analyze the subordinate clause starting with 'neither of the submitted reports'.
The head of the subject phrase is the indefinite pronoun 'neither'.
Indefinite pronouns such as 'neither', 'either', and 'each' take a singular verb regardless of the plural prepositional object ('reports') that follows, requiring the singular auxiliary verb 'has'.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord and Indefinite Pronoun Agreement
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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