Grammar
What this section tests
Grammar items ask you to choose the sentence that is correct, or to fix an underlined portion. The recurring topics are subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement and case, verb tense consistency, comma and semicolon use, apostrophes, modifier placement, parallel structure, and recognizing fragments and run-ons.
Rules that decide most questions
- Agreement: ignore prepositional phrases between subject and verb. The box of ornaments is heavy.
- Indefinite pronouns: each, everyone, nobody, either are singular; both, few, many are plural.
- Either/or, neither/nor: the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Compound subjects joined by and take a plural verb unless the pair is a single unit.
- Semicolon joins two independent clauses; a comma alone creates a comma splice.
- Apostrophes: singular possessive -’s; plural possessive -s’; its is possessive, it’s means it is.
- Modifiers must sit next to the word they describe.
- Parallelism: items in a list share the same grammatical form.
Traps to expect
Long interrupting phrases that hide the real subject; collective nouns (team, jury) treated as singular; who vs. whom (test with he/him); mixing lie/lay or fewer/less.
Worked example
Each of the students (has / have) a badge. The subject is Each, which is singular; of the students is a prepositional phrase and does not control the verb. Correct: has.
Rule of thumb
Read the sentence aloud, drop the interrupting phrase, and match verb to subject. If two complete thoughts are joined without a conjunction, the answer needs a semicolon or a period.