Writing: English Usage and Grammar
What this section measures
Usage questions test standard written English: agreement, pronouns, modifiers, parallelism, tense, punctuation, and concision. Most items hinge on one error, so a systematic scan beats reading for a vague sense of what sounds right.
Subject-verb agreement. Find the true subject, ignoring interrupting phrases (along with, as well as, together with) and inverted order. Each, every, either, neither, anyone, everybody are singular; both, few, many, several are plural. Collective nouns (committee, staff) are usually singular in American usage.
Pronouns. Check case (who/whom, I/me) and that the antecedent is clear and agrees in number.
Modifiers. An introductory phrase must describe the subject that follows it. Walking to the office, the rain began is wrong because the rain was not walking.
Parallelism. Items joined by and, or, not only... but also must share grammatical form.
Punctuation. A semicolon joins two complete clauses; a colon follows a complete clause and introduces a list or explanation. Never join two clauses with a comma alone.
Traps that appear
- Long prepositional phrases hiding the subject.
- One of the officers who has/have - the relative pronoun refers to the plural noun.
- Shifts in tense or in person mid-sentence.
- Wordy but grammatical options that are not the most concise correct one.
Rule of thumb
Strip the sentence to subject and verb. If those two agree and the sentence still has one complete independent clause, the core is sound; then check each modifier and each joined element.
Worked example. Each of the field offices (has/have) submitted its report. The subject is Each, singular; of the field offices is a prepositional phrase. Correct: has.