SAT Subject-Verb Agreement Rules

Subject-verb agreement questions appear 3–5 times per SAT. The SAT deliberately separates subjects from their verbs with long prepositional phrases, relative clauses, or appositives — so the noun immediately before the verb is often not the actual subject.

Agreement also applies to collective nouns (team, committee, audience — singular in American English) and indefinite pronouns (everyone, each, neither — all singular).

Cross out prepositional phrases and parenthetical clauses to isolate the real subject. "The results of the study were significant" — cross out "of the study"; the subject is "results" (plural). This one technique solves most agreement questions.

Collective nouns are singular in American English: "the team is," "the committee has," "the audience was."

Indefinite pronouns that are always singular: everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, no one, nobody, each, every, either, neither. "Each of the students was" — not "were."

Agreeing with the noun closest to the verb rather than the actual grammatical subject. This proximity error is exactly what the SAT tests — the intervening phrase is a deliberate distractor.

Treating collective nouns as plural. In American English, "the team plays" (singular), not "the team play."

Making "each," "every," or "neither" plural because they feel like "all." These words are grammatically singular regardless of how many individuals they refer to.

For every subject-verb agreement question, physically draw a line from subject to verb, crossing through any intervening phrases. This visual isolation of subject and verb prevents the proximity error that causes most agreement mistakes.

ScoreBooster's Standard English Conventions sessions include agreement questions with progressively longer and more complex interrupting phrases.