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Another subject/verb agreement example

Last updated: 13 Oct 2008

Another subject/verb agreement problem for you to try.

National health officials have stated that the number of people suffering from cholera has risen dangerously high this year.

  1. has risen dangerously high this year.
  2. has raised dangerously high this year.
  3. has been raised dangerously high this year.
  4. have risen dangerously high this year.
  5. have rosen dangerously high this year.

Try this question yourself before reading the explanation below.

Explanation

Again we can see that this a subject/verb agreement question because the verb "to have" changes from "has" to "have" in the answers.

The subject of the sentence is the "the number of people". Since number is always singular, then the verb must also be singular.

Hence, D and E, which both use "have", are incorrect.

C is needlessly passive, suggesting that some insidious but unnamed agent is raising the incidence of cholera.

B, with "has raised", is inappropriate, because this also suggests that some outside force or agent is "raising" the incidence of cholera, which is not necessarily true

The correct answer, A, has the correct form of subject/verb agreement, as well as stating that the number "has risen"- whether on its own or through the work of some outside force we do not know, and do not need to know.


Next page: Pronoun problems

Comments (1):

  1. You said that "number is always singular". However, I believe that there are two cases. "The number of" is followed by singular verb, but "a number of" needs plural verb. Pls add this note so that ppl don't make this mistake, like I did (:

    Meo_map on 15 Jul 2010 (permalink)

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