Sentence Correction Under Exam Pressure
A candidate is answering an English grammar section. Four items appear:
- "The police is investigating the theft."
- "Neither the teacher nor the students was present."
- "He has been living in Dhaka since five years."
- "She is one of the best student in the class."
The candidate must decide which sentences are grammatically wrong and correct them, and must also explain the rule involved, because the section awards partial marks for reasoning. The candidate is unsure about collective nouns and about the "neither...nor" rule. Describe the sentences and the candidate's uncertainty.
1. Identify the error in each sentence and give the corrected version.
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"The police is investigating the theft." - Police is a plural collective noun in English and takes a plural verb. Correct: "The police are investigating the theft."
"Neither the teacher nor the students was present." - With neither...nor, the verb agrees with the nearer subject. The nearer subject is students (plural), so the verb should be plural. Correct: "Neither the teacher nor the students were present."
"He has been living in Dhaka since five years." - Since marks a point in time; for marks a duration. Five years is a duration. Correct: "He has been living in Dhaka for five years."
"She is one of the best student in the class." - After one of the, the noun must be plural. Correct: "She is one of the best students in the class."
All four sentences contain errors; none is correct as written.
2. The candidate believes "police" can take a singular verb when it means the department. Is that defensible here?
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Partly, but not for this sentence.
- When police refers to the force as a body of officers, it is treated as plural: The police are investigating. This is the standard use and fits sentence 1, which describes officers doing an investigation.
- When police is used as a modifier or as an organisation name, the verb follows the head noun: The police department is investigating (singular, because the head noun is department).
In sentence 1 there is no head noun such as department or force; police stands alone as the subject. The plural verb are is therefore required.
Judgement for the exam: the safe, standard answer is that police takes a plural verb. The candidate's alternative only works if the sentence is rewritten with a singular head noun, which is not the case here.
3. Explain the "nearest subject" rule and why sentence 2 is often answered wrongly.
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The rule. With paired conjunctions either...or and neither...nor, the verb agrees with the subject closest to it (the nearer subject), not with the first subject.
- Neither the teacher nor the students were present. (nearer = students, plural)
- Neither the students nor the teacher was present. (nearer = teacher, singular)
Why it is answered wrongly. Many candidates learn "neither is singular" and apply a singular verb mechanically. That is true when neither stands alone as the subject (Neither of them is ready), but it is not the rule when neither...nor joins two subjects of different number.
Exam judgement. The candidate should apply the nearest-subject rule, and in sentence 2 the nearer subject is students, so were is correct. Writing the rule in the reasoning box earns partial marks even if the correction is imperfect.