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Difficulty: HardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Complete the sentence below by supplying the correct form of the auxiliary verbs that satisfy the rules of subject-verb concord.

Answer:Hardly 【has】 the board of directors reached a unanimous decision when every member of the panel 【is】 requested to sign the final declaration.

Answer

The first blank requires the singular verb 'has' and the second blank requires the singular verb 'is'.
The correct verb for the first blank is 'has' because the subject 'board of directors' acts as a single entity reaching a unanimous agreement. The correct verb for the second blank is 'is' because 'every member' specifies a singular grammatical subject, requiring singular agreement.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the subject and verb concord for the inverted introductory clause.
The subject 'the board of directors' functions as a single unified collective body arriving at one unanimous decision, requiring the singular auxiliary verb 'has'.
Collective nouns take a singular verb when the group acts as a single, undivided unit.
2
Determine the correct verb form for the clause introduced by 'when'.
The subject phrase is headed by 'every member', which requires the singular auxiliary verb 'is'.
Indefinite determiners such as 'every' or 'each' make the subject grammatically singular, irrespective of any intervening plural prepositional phrase such as 'of the panel'.

Key Concept

Subject-Verb Concord with Collective Nouns, Inverted Clauses, and Indefinite Determiners
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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