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Question

Difficulty: HardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Fill in the blanks in the sentence below with the grammatically correct verb forms that satisfy the rules of subject-verb concord.

Answer:Neither the chief editor nor the senior reporters 【were】 aware that a series of investigative articles 【was】 published without the management's prior approval.

Answer

The first blank requires 'were' and the second blank requires 'was'.
The correct verb forms are 'were' for the first blank and 'was' for the second blank. The first blank is governed by the proximity rule for correlated subjects ('neither... nor'), which mandates agreement with the plural noun 'senior reporters'. The second blank requires the singular verb 'was' because the functional subject of the clause is the singular head noun 'series'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the subject and applying concord rules for the first blank.
The subject consists of two elements connected by 'neither... nor': 'the chief editor' (singular) and 'the senior reporters' (plural).
When subjects are joined by correlative conjunctions such as 'neither... nor', the principle of proximity applies, meaning the verb must agree with the subject closest to it ('senior reporters'). Therefore, the plural past verb 'were' is correct.
2
Determine the subject and applying concord rules for the second blank.
The subject of the subordinate clause is the noun phrase 'a series of investigative articles'.
The head noun of the phrase is 'series', which is singular. Collective noun phrases formed by 'a series of' take a singular verb despite the intervening plural noun ('articles'). Therefore, the singular past verb 'was' is required.

Key Concept

Subject-Verb Agreement (Proximity Concord and Noun Phrase Head Concord)
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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