One of the most common grammar student mistakes in TOEFL writing and speaking is subject-verb agreement. This post highlights singular versus plural rules, covering more complicated cases. These rules are also useful for TOEFL writing sentence building and the TOEFL reading fill-in-the-missing-letters tasks.
Grammar is a critical factor in achieving a high score on the TOEFL Writing and Speaking sections One of the most essential grammar elements is subject-verb agreement in number, which ensures that singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs. Mastering this rule is key to writing clearly and effectively, helping you avoid common mistakes that can lower your score.
Subject-verb agreement is generally straightforward: a singular subject takes a singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb. However, academic texts and advanced essay prompts feature complex grammatical structures that can disrupt this rule. TOEFL tests often intentionally use irregular nouns, collective nouns, indefinite pronouns, conjunction-based noun phrases, numbers and quantities, inverted sentences, and misleading modifiers to trap test-takers.
1. Irregular Nouns
Plural nouns usually take the standard -s or -es ending, but some irregular nouns do not follow this pattern. A particular challenge arises with nouns that appear plural but function as singular. For example, words like glasses or scissors refer to a single object but always take plural verbs. Conversely, some nouns—such as news or mathematics—may look plural but are treated as singular.
Nouns that look plural but take a SINGULAR verb
❌ Incorrect: Mathematics are required for all engineering students.
✔ Correct: Mathematics is required for all engineering students.
Nouns that represent one object but take a PLURAL verb
❌ Incorrect: The laboratory scissors has been misplaced.
✔ Correct: The laboratory scissors have been misplaced.
❌ Incorrect: This safety glasses protect your eyes from chemical splashes.
✔ Correct: These safety glasses protect your eyes from chemical splashes.
❌ Incorrect: This pair of safety glasses protect your eyes from chemical splashes.
✔ Correct: This pair [singular subject] of glasses protects [singular verb] your eyes from chemical splashes.
Note: If you use the phrase "pair of," the word "pair" becomes the singular subject: "This pair of glasses protects..."
For the TOEFL, the greatest challenge comes from Latin and Greek irregular nouns common in university textbooks.
Greek and Latin Singular vs. Plural
The Rule: Words ending in -on or -um are often singular; words ending in -a, -i, or -es are often plural.
Singular: Criterion, phenomenon, bacterium, medium, curriculum, analysis, hypothesis.
Plural: Criteria, phenomena, bacteria, media, curricula, analyses, hypotheses.
❌ Incorrect: The primary criteria for evaluating the validity of the archeological find was criticized by the panel.
✔ Correct: The primary criteria for evaluating the validity of the archeological find were criticized by the panel.
✔ Correct: The phenomenon of global warming explains the rising sea levels.
✔ Correct: Volcanic phenomena] are being monitored by the research team.
2. Collective Nouns and Group Dynamics
Another layer of complexity comes from collective nouns—words like team, family, committee, faculty, audience, staff, or minority. These nouns can take either singular or plural verbs depending on whether they refer to the group as a whole or to its individual members.
American English Usage
There is a notable difference between British and American English in handling collective nouns. British English allows them to be used with both singular and plural verbs, while American English generally treats them as singular units. For instance, in American English, instead of saying:
❌ My family are large.
It is more common to structure it as:
✔ The members of my family are large.
Group Unity vs. Individual Action
Even in American English, a plural verb is required when the collective noun describes a situation involving disagreement, division, or individual action.
When a group acts as a singular unit, the sentence describes an entry, a conclusion, or a state of completion where everyone is in agreement or acting together simultaneously.
Key Action Clues: Words like reached an agreement, unified, standardized, implemented, passed, established, concluded.
Vocabulary Clues: Words like unanimous, uniform, single, collective, whole.
✔ "The committee has reached a unanimous decision.
✔ "The university administration has implemented a new policy.
When a group acts as individuals, the sentence describes internal conflict, personal physical movements, or a statistic where members are counted separately.
Key Action Clues: Words like arguing, debating, disagreeing, voting, dividing, scattering, eating, wearing.
Vocabulary Clues: Words like different, separate, opposing, diverse, individual, majority.
✔ The faculty are arguing about where to allocate the research grant.
✔ The majority of the student body disagree with the newly proposed tuition hikes.
3. Indefinite Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns pose a major challenge. Some are always singular, while others are always plural. A third category can change based on the noun phrase that follows them.
Category A: Always Singular
Pronouns: Everyone, everybody, everything, someone, somebody, something, anyone, anybody, anything, no one, nobody, nothing, each, every, either, neither.
✔ Correct: Each of the historical documents is kept in a climate-controlled vault.
✔ Correct: Everyone enrolled in the advanced biology seminars needs to pass the lab exam.
Category B: Always Plural
Pronouns: Both, several, few, many.
✔ Correct: Several of the proposed theories have been disproven by modern technology.
✔ Correct: Both of the economic models suggest that inflation will normalize next quarter.
Category C: Context-Dependent (The "SANAM" Pronouns)
Pronouns: Some, Any, None, All, Most.
The Rule: Look at the noun object inside the prepositional phrase following the pronoun. If the noun is uncountable, use a singular verb. If the noun is plural, use a plural verb.
✔ Uncountable Example: Most of the underlying data [uncountable/mass] is inconclusive.
✔ Plural Example: Most of the dataphiles [plural countable] are reviewing the final results.
✔ Uncountable Example: None of the industrial pollution has been cleaned up.
✔ Plural Example: None of the local factories have complied with safety regulations.
4. Noun Phrases Joined by Conjunctions
When two subjects are connected by conjunctions like and, or, nor, either...or, or neither...nor, determining agreement requires identifying proximity.
Compound Subjects with "And"
The Rule: Two or more subjects joined by and almost always take a plural verb.
✔ Correct: The greenhouse effect and deforestation accelerate global climate shifts.
Exception: When the two nouns form a single, well-known compound concept, use a singular verb.
✔ Correct: Trial and error is an essential part of scientific exploration.
Correlative Conjunctions ("Or" / "Nor")
The Rule: The verb must agree with the subject closest to it.
❌ Incorrect: Neither the professor nor the students is attending the academic conference.
✔ Correct: Neither the professor nor the students [plural, closest to verb] are attending the academic conference.
✔ Correct: Neither the students nor the professor [singular, closest to verb] is attending the academic conference.
5. Noun Phrases with Numbers and Quantities
Another difficult area involves numbers and quantities. A phrase like ten dollars is singular because it refers to a single amount, while ten apples is plural because it counts individual items.
Money, Time, and Distance (Singular Units)
The Rule: Expressions of money, time, periods of time, or distances are written as a singular sum.
✔ Correct: Ten dollars is too much for that item.
✔ Correct: Five miles is the total distance between the two research stations.
✔ Correct: Three hours was allocated for the standardized reading section.
Fractions and Percentages
The Rule: The verb matches the noun object found after the word "of" (similar to the SANAM rule).
✔ Correct: More than 40% of the forest [singular] has been destroyed by wildfires.
✔ Correct: More than 40% of the trees [plural] have been cut down by logging corporations.
"A Number of" vs. "The Number of"
"A number of" functions as a plural modifier meaning "many." It requires a plural verb.
"The number of" refers to a single, specific statistical metric. It requires a singular verb.
✔ Correct: A number of innovative strategies exist to mitigate urban traffic congestion.
✔ Correct: The number of registered vehicles in metropolitan areas is growing exponentially.
6. Inverted Sentences and Misleading Modifiers
Errors often arise when a subject and verb are separated by lengthy phrases, leading writers to mistakenly agree the verb with a nearby noun rather than the actual subject. Inverted structures—where the verb precedes the subject—compound this difficulty.
The Misleading Modifier / Distractor Trap
Prepositional phrases or parenthetical expressions placed between the subject and verb must be mentally ignored.
Distractor Phrases: Along with, as well as, together with, in addition to, accompanied by, filled with.
❌ Incorrect: The box of chocolates were on the table.
✔ Correct: The box [singular subject] of chocolates was [singular verb] on the table.
❌ Incorrect: The lead researcher, along with her team of field assistants, were compiling data.
✔ Correct: The lead researcher [singular], along with her team of field assistants, was [singular] compiling data.
In formal academic writing, prepositional phrases of location or negative adverbs can invert the standard subject-verb layout.
The Rule: Look past the verb to locate the true, inverted subject.
❌ Incorrect: Seldom has alternative energy solutions been implemented so rapidly.
✔ Correct: Seldom have [plural verb] alternative energy solutions [plural subject] been implemented so rapidly.
✔ Correct: Deep within the core of the ancient glacier lies [singular verb] a preserved bacterium [singular subject].
✔ Correct: Deep within the core of the ancient glacier lie [plural verb] preserved bacteria [plural subject].
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