Examkin

Question

Difficulty: EasySubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Consider the sentence below:

'Neither the principal investigator nor the field research assistants _____ ready to present the findings at yesterday's conference.'

Which verb form correctly completes the sentence according to the rules of subject-verb agreement?

  1. wereAnswer
  2. B
    was
  3. C
    is
  4. D
    has

Answer

The correct verb form is 'were'.
The correct verb form is 'were' because when subjects are joined by 'neither... nor', the principle of proximity dictates that the verb agrees with the noun nearest to it. The nearest noun 'field research assistants' is plural, and the time marker 'yesterday' requires the past tense, making 'were' the accurate choice.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the correlative conjunction structure in the sentence.
The subjects 'principal investigator' (singular) and 'field research assistants' (plural) are joined by 'Neither... nor'.
Correlative conjunctions like 'neither... nor' trigger the proximity rule of concord.
2
Determine which subject determines the verb form.
The subject closer to the verb blank is 'field research assistants', which is plural.
Under proximity concord, the verb agrees with the noun phrase nearest to it.
3
Select the appropriate verb tense and number.
The past time indicator 'yesterday' combined with a plural subject requires the plural past tense verb 'were'.
Matching both grammatical number (plural) and tense context ensures full grammatical correctness.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:45s
Rate this question

Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

More questions from this topic