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ACT English 1.1 Grammar and Usage 744 Views
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Description:
ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 1, Problem 1. What should replace the underlined word?
Transcript
- 00:03
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by corndogs. An abomination against hot dogs.
- 00:09
Albeit a delicious abomination.
- 00:11
What should replace the underlined word below?
- 00:14
At the state fair, she and her friends eats hotdogs and corndogs.
- 00:26
The name of the game here is subject verb agreement.
Full Transcript
- 00:29
Don't sweat it, though, it's really a pretty simple game. Even a child could play it.
- 00:34
All we have to do is make sure that the subject and predicate are getting along.
- 00:38
If the subject is singular, the verb that follows should be singular too.
- 00:43
If the subject is plural, then the predicate should be as well. It's as simple as that.
- 00:48
So, the subject in this sentence is "she and her friends," because they're the ones doing
- 00:53
something.
- 00:54
In this case chowing down on a feast of hotdogs and corndogsand probably regretting it later.
- 00:59
Since there's more than one person engaging in this feeding frenzy, the subject is plural,
- 01:04
so we know that the verb that follows needs to be plural as well.
- 01:07
Now that we've got that sorted out, we can eliminate (A) because "eats" is singular.
- 01:11
Yeah, despite the fact that it has an s on the end.
- 01:15
One "eats." Many "eat."
- 01:18
We can kick (C) to the curb for the same reason. "Is" is singular, so it doesn't get along
- 01:23
with our plural subject.
- 01:24
(D) is also no good, because "eaten" requires the helping verb "have." It just can't make
- 01:29
it in this world alone.
- 01:31
And so we're left with (B), which totally works for us because "eat" is plural like
- 01:34
our subject.
- 01:36
It's the only choice that can handle the hotdog/corndog devouring horde.
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