Concord and Grammar Usage: Making Subjects and Verbs Agree
Concord (agreement) questions are the most reliable marks in JAMB - and the most commonly lost, because the distractor is usually a noun placed between the subject and its verb. Rules of usage tested alongside concord include pronoun case, comparatives, tense sequence and modifier placement.
Concord rules to memorise
- Ignore phrases between subject and verb: The bag of oranges is heavy.
- One of + plural noun + singular verb: One of the boys is absent.
- Each, every, either, neither, everyone, nobody, somebody take singular verbs.
- The number of X is (singular) but A number of X are (plural).
- Neither…nor / either…or: the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Collective nouns (committee, team, government) are singular when acting as one body.
- News, mathematics, measles, physics are singular; scissors, trousers, police are plural.
- Comparatives with Latin roots take to: superior to, inferior to, senior to, prefer X to Y.
- Pronoun case after prepositions: between you and me, not between you and I.
Worked example
Neither the manager nor his assistants ___ willing to attend the meeting. Answer: were. With neither…nor, the verb follows the subject nearest to it - assistants, which is plural. If the order were reversed (Neither the assistants nor the manager), the answer would be was. The plural noun assistants is what decides, not the word neither.
Traps that cost marks
- Being pulled to the plural noun in an intervening phrase (The list of items was…).
- Writing One of the boys are - the relative clause still needs a singular verb.
- Dangling modifiers: Walking down the road, the church was seen wrongly says the church walked.
- Mixed tense in reported speech and conditional sentences.
- Using than after superior, senior, prefer.