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Difficulty: HardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Fill in the blank in the sentence below with the grammatically correct form of the verb.

Answer:Every member of the steering committee, in addition to the regional representatives who were invited to the summit, 【is】 required to submit a signed report by the end of the session.

Answer

The correct verb form to fill the blank is 'is' (present tense) or 'was' (past tense).
The core grammatical subject of the sentence is 'Every member'. The quantifier 'every' mandates a singular verb form. Intervening prepositional phrases introduced by 'in addition to' do not convert a singular subject into a plural one, nor does the plural noun 'representatives' within the modifier phrase change the subject's agreement requirements. Therefore, the singular verb 'is' (or 'was') correctly completes the sentence.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical head subject of the main clause.
The core subject noun phrase is 'Every member'.
Determiners such as 'every' distributively modify singular nouns and require a singular subject agreement.
2
Analyze intervening clauses and parenthetical phrases.
The phrase 'in addition to the regional representatives who were invited to the summit' is a quasi-conjunctional prepositional phrase.
Expressions like 'in addition to', 'along with', and 'as well as' do not form compound plural subjects like 'and' does; they remain syntactically adjunct to the head subject.
3
Select the verb form that matches the head subject in number.
The singular verb 'is' or 'was' correctly completes the predicate.
The verb must agree in number with the singular head noun 'member', ignoring intervening plural nouns like 'representatives'.

Key Concept

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord) with Distributive Quantifiers and Parenthetical Adjuncts
Estimated Time:1m 15s
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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