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Question

Difficulty: HardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Which option correctly completes the sentence below according to the rules of subject-verb concord?

"Not only the project coordinator but also the senior analysts who reviewed the financial report _____ that each of the proposed budget amendments _____ immediate approval."

  1. believe / requiresAnswer
  2. B
    believe / require
  3. C
    believes / requires
  4. D
    believes / require

Answer

believe / requires
The option containing 'believe / requires' is correct because in correlated structures using 'not only... but also', proximity concord mandates agreement with the closer subject ('senior analysts', which is plural, taking 'believe'). In the second clause, the head subject is the distributive pronoun 'each', which is grammatically singular and takes the singular verb 'requires'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the first blank following the correlated conjunction 'Not only... but also'.
Apply the rule of proximity concord, which dictates that when subjects are connected by 'not only... but also', the verb agrees in number with the subject noun phrase closest to it.
The noun phrase closest to the verb is the plural 'senior analysts', requiring the plural verb form 'believe'.
2
Analyze the second blank following the dependent clause in the subordinate clause.
Identify the grammatical head of the subject phrase 'each of the proposed budget amendments'.
The true head of the subject phrase is the distributive indefinite pronoun 'each', which is grammatically singular regardless of the plural noun 'amendments' inside the prepositional modifier.
3
Select the option that satisfies both concord requirements.
Combine the plural verb 'believe' for the first blank with the singular verb 'requires' for the second blank.
The pairing 'believe / requires' correctly enforces both proximity concord and indefinite pronoun concord.

Key Concept

Subject-Verb Agreement involving Correlated Conjunctions (Proximity Concord) and Distributive Indefinite Pronouns
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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