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Difficulty: Very hardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Complete the sentence below by providing the grammatically correct verb forms that satisfy standard subject-verb agreement rules.

Answer:Not only the presiding judge but also the jury members 【were】 convinced of the suspect's guilt, especially since more than one witness 【has】 testified under oath.

Answer

The correct verb form for the first blank is 'were' and for the second blank is 'has'.
The first blank requires 'were' because the plural noun phrase 'the jury members' is closer to the verb position in a 'not only... but also' construction. The second blank requires 'has' because 'more than one' followed by a singular countable noun ('witness') requires a singular verb under standard grammatical concord.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the subject and proximity rule for the first blank.
In sentences linked by correlative conjunctions like 'not only... but also...', the verb must agree in number with the closer subject. The subject closer to the verb is 'the jury members' (plural), which requires the plural verb 'were'.
Proximity concord dictates that the nearer element in a correlative structure controls verb agreement.
2
Determine the concord rule governing the expression in the second blank.
The phrase 'more than one witness' contains the expression 'more than one' followed by a singular countable noun ('witness'). In standard formal English, this structure strictly requires a singular verb ('has').
Despite referring conceptually to multiple entities, the phrase 'more than one + singular noun' follows grammatical concord and takes a singular verb.

Key Concept

Proximity concord with correlative conjunctions and grammatical concord with 'more than one'
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Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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