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After sentence boundaries, this is the other big bucket of fast, rule-based grammar points: subject-verb agreement, verb tense and form, and pronoun consistency. The questions are tidy once you know the rules, and one trap accounts for most of the misses.
Key takeaways
- Match the verb to its true subject. Ignore words in between.
- Keep verb tense consistent with the rest of the sentence unless the meaning shifts.
- Pronouns must agree with what they replace and be unambiguous.
- The #1 trap: a noun sitting next to the verb that isn’t the real subject.
Find the real subject
The SAT loves to slip a prepositional phrase between the subject and verb so the verb sits next to the wrong noun. "The collection of rare manuscripts…". The subject is collection (singular), not manuscripts. Strip the in-between phrase and the agreement is obvious.
Cross out the prepositional phrase between the subject and the verb. Whatever’s left is the real subject, and it decides singular vs. plural.
Try one
The collection of rare medieval manuscripts housed in a climate-controlled vault beneath the library.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
Subjects that don’t act like they look
A handful of subjects reliably sound like one number and act as another. These are worth knowing cold, because the test builds sentences specifically to make your ear vote wrong.
| When the subject is… | The verb is… | For example |
|---|---|---|
| each, every, either, neither | singular | Each of the essays was revised. |
| the number of X | singular | The number of applicants has doubled. |
| a number of X | plural | A number of applicants have withdrawn. |
| X and Y | plural | The novel and the memoir were praised. |
| X or Y / neither X nor Y | matches the closer noun | Neither the director nor the actors were available. |
Tense: read the timeline, not the blank
Tense questions are agreement questions about time. The sentence (or the one before it) almost always plants a time cue: a date, a "by the time," a neighboring verb already in past or present. Match it. Don’t pick a fancier tense because it sounds more academic; "had been documenting" is only right when one past event has to sit before another past event.
In 1972, marine biologist Eugenie Clark so-called sleeping sharks in caves off the Yucatán Peninsula, a finding that challenged the assumption that sharks must swim continuously to breathe.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
The quick checklist
- Agreement: cross out the middle phrase, match verb to the real subject.
- Tense: does the verb match the time frame of the rest of the sentence?
- Pronouns: singular for singular, and is it 100% clear what the pronoun refers to?
Drill verbs, agreement, and pronouns with a tutor that points to the real subject.
Practice grammar & agreement →Frequently asked questions
- What does Form, Structure, and Sense test on the SAT?
- The grammar that keeps a sentence coherent: subject-verb agreement, verb tense and form, and pronoun agreement and clarity.
- How do I get subject-verb agreement right?
- Find the true subject by crossing out any phrase between the subject and the verb (often a prepositional phrase), then match the verb to that subject’s number, singular or plural.
- What’s the most common agreement trap?
- A noun sitting right next to the verb that isn’t the actual subject, usually inside a prepositional phrase. The verb must agree with the real subject, not the nearest noun.
- Is "the number of" singular or plural?
- "The number of" takes a singular verb (the number of students has grown); "a number of" takes a plural verb (a number of students have signed up). The plural noun that follows is the bait; the phrase itself decides.