One of the most common tricks the test makers play on us in CAT Sentence Correction is to get us to miss a lack of agreement between a subject and its verb. This may sound so fundamental to any language that it would be hard for us to miss. In many cases this is true. For example, it’s pretty straightforward to realize that it should be “the book is” or “the books are.” However, one of the test makers’ tools is to place the subject a long way from the verb in an effort to confuse us.
Consider the following CAT Sentence Correction practice question:
The article on the subject of Colombian drug lords published in The Economist this morning neither alludes nor specifically describes the methods that the police employ in the fight against crime.
A) neither alludes nor specifically describes the methods that the police employ in the fight against crime.
B) neither allude to nor specifically describe the methods that the police employ in the fight against crime.
C) neither alludes to nor specifically describes the methods that the police employs in the fight against crime.
D) neither alludes nor specifically describes the methods that the police employs in the fight against crime.
E) neither alludes to nor specifically describes the methods that the police employ in the fight against crime.
As always with CAT Sentence Correction, you should read the sentence as it is and identify grammatical errors first. You may notice that there is a missing preposition after “alludes.” It should be “alludes to.” Therefore, eliminate A and scan for any other answer choice that repeats this error. In this way, you can Eliminate D. You are left with B, C, and E.
Scan the remaining answer choices for differences and possible grammatical errors. B has “allude,” while C has “alludes.” You are clearly dealing with a case of subject-verb agreement.Is the subject plural or singular?
Step 1: What is the subject?
The first step is to figure out what the subject is. To identify the subject, you ask yourself: Who or what did the action? In this case, that means: Who or what did the alluding? The answer to this question will give you the subject. In the above passage, “the article” did the alluding.
Step 2: Is the subject singular or plural?
“The article” is singular. Therefore, the verb must be the singular “alludes.” Eliminate B. However, before we move on, notice what the test makers are trying to make us believe. By placing a phrase with a plural noun “on the subject of Colombian drug lords” between the subject and the verb, the test makers are trying to fool us into thinking that the subject is actually plural. In addition, it creates a distance between the subject and the verb and this distance is meant to confuse us. In fact, this is another trap. This is what is called an X of Y structure or in this case an X on Y structure (The article on the subject … ), and similarly to the X of Y structure, the verb should agree with the X part of the subject, not what comes after.
Step 3: Compare the answer options that remain
We are left with C and E. Scan for the difference between the two. C has “the police employs” and E has the “the police employ.” This is yet another subject-verb issue. Unlike many languages, English treats “the police” as a plural noun. It thus requires the plural verb “employ.” Therefore, the answer is E.
Getting the subject to agree with the verb is perhaps the most important of all Sentence Correction tasks. This issue comes up so often that it is well worth familiarizing yourself with its various facets.
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