The Notice Draft With Four Problem Spots
You are editing a draft notice for the school magazine. The editor's rules are: keep the writer's meaning, change only the marked words, use simple present for habitual actions, and prefer formal register. The draft has four marked spots. (i) 'Each year, our school celebrate its foundation day with a cultural programme.' (ii) 'This year, the organising committee have decided to include a debate.' (iii) 'The winner will be awarded a trophy and a certificate.' (iv) 'We look forward to see a large audience.' A classmate proposes: change (i) to 'celebrates', (ii) to 'has', (iii) to 'will award', and (iv) to 'seeing'. Another says (ii) should stay 'have' because a committee is a group of people. You have 5 minutes; the question asks you to accept or reject each proposed change and justify it with a rule, not by ear.
1. Evaluate the proposed changes (i) and (ii). Which do you accept, and what rule decides (ii)?
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(i) Accept 'celebrates'. The subject is 'our school', which is singular, and the sentence describes a habitual action ('each year'), so simple present singular is required: our school celebrates.
(ii) This is a judgement call, not a simple error. 'Committee' is a collective noun. In British usage, 'have' is possible when the writer thinks of the members acting individually; 'has' is preferred when the group acts as one body. Here the committee has made one decision, so 'has decided' is the safer formal choice and is consistent with the editor's register rule. The classmate's reason is not nonsense, but it does not make 'have' the only correct form. The exam rule to state is: choose the form that matches the intended focus and keep it consistent.
2. The classmate changes 'will be awarded' to 'will award' and 'see' to 'seeing'. Which change is necessary, and which one changes meaning? Should either be rejected?
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'See' → 'seeing' is necessary. In 'look forward to', the word 'to' is a preposition, not an infinitive marker, so it takes a gerund: look forward to seeing.
'Will be awarded' → 'will award' is grammatical but changes meaning. In the original, the winner receives the trophy: the winner will be awarded. In the proposed version, the winner becomes the giver: the winner will award. That is almost certainly not the writer's meaning, so reject it unless the sentence is rewritten with a different subject, e.g. The committee will award the winner a trophy.
Conclusion: accept the gerund change; reject the voice change because it reverses the roles.
3. The sentence 'We look forward to seeing a large audience' is grammatically fixed but semantically odd. Explain why and suggest a formal replacement in the same register.
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The grammar is now correct, but the meaning is odd: the organisers do not 'see' an audience in the way the sentence suggests. An audience attends an event; the organisers hope for its presence. 'Seeing a large audience' sounds as if the audience is a sight rather than a group of participants.
Formal replacement: 'We hope that many students will attend.'
This keeps the formal register, avoids the awkward verb, and states the intended idea directly. The lesson is that grammar-checking and meaning-checking are separate steps; a sentence can pass the first and fail the second.