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Difficulty: EasySubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Read the sentence below: 'Neither the department head nor the assistant lecturers ______ available to attend the regional conference last week.' Which option correctly completes the sentence in accordance with the rules of subject-verb agreement?

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

Answer

The verb form 'were' correctly completes the sentence in accordance with proximity concord.
When two subjects are connected by 'neither...nor', the verb must agree with the subject closest to it. Here, the noun phrase closest to the blank is 'the assistant lecturers' (plural), which requires the plural past-tense verb 'were'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical structure connecting the subjects in the sentence stem.
The subjects 'the department head' (singular) and 'the assistant lecturers' (plural) are connected by the correlative conjunction 'neither...nor'.
When subjects are joined by 'neither...nor', subject-verb concord is determined by the proximity rule.
2
Determine which subject is closest to the verb blank.
The plural noun phrase 'the assistant lecturers' is directly adjacent to the verb position.
The proximity rule dictates that the verb must agree with the nearer subject element.
3
Select the verb form that matches plural number and past tense context.
The past plural auxiliary verb is 'were'.
'were' provides both correct plural agreement with 'assistant lecturers' and temporal consistency with 'last week'.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:45s
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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