Answers to Exercises
Subject-Verb Agreement, pp. 289-300

What if my answers are correct?
If you find that all your answers match these, then the your ear is tuned satisfactorily for subject-verb agreement issues.  Congratulations!

What if my answers are incorrect?
If you find that some of your answers don't match these, then WATCH OUT for the subject-verb agreement issues that we discussed in class.

Answers to Exercise on Making Verbs Agree with Their Subjects, p. 324

  1. leaks
  2. close
  3. keep
  4. plays
  5. sounds
  6. taste
  7. complains
  8. consists
  9. criticizes
  10. live
  11. sorts
  12. visit
  13. sing
  14. sells
  15. tests
Answers to Exercise on Recasting a Paragraph with Pronouns, p. 325
Answers for the paragraphs will vary.
  1. comes
  2. inspects
  3. give
  4. tell
  5. listens
  6. drinks
  7. leaves
  8. drips
  9. leak
  10. dance
        When the landlord comes here once a month to inspect our apartment, we give him a glass of iced tea and tell him our problems.   He listens politely, drinking his iced tea, but leaves without fixing anything.  The faucet still drips, the pipes still leak, and the roaches still dance all night in the kitchen.
  1. rumbles
  2. creases
  3. sits
  4. watches
  5. rattles
  6. smiles
  7. remembers
  8. drifts
  9. dreams
  10. races
  11. races
  12. laugh
  13. disappear
  14. wakes
        While thunder rumbles overhead and lightning creases the sky, the old man sits quietly watching the rain rattling against the windows.  Smiling, he remembers another storm and begins to drift back into the past, dreaming.  In his dream he races the lightning as woman races beside him.  They laugh and disappear into the night, but the old man never wakes from his dream.

Answers to Exercise on Making Have, Do and Be Agree with Their Subjects, p. 293

  1. has
  2. does
  3. is
  4. has
  5. are
  6. have
  7. does
  8. is
  9. have
  10. are
Answers to Exercise on Making Verbs Agree with Their Subjects, p. 296-297
  1. is
  2. are
  3. makes
  4. costs
  5. are
  6. are
  7. cry
  8. ring
  9. ignores
  10. have
  11. fixes
  12. wake
  13. go
  14. contain
  15. criticizes
Answers to Exercise on Combining Sentences with Correct Verb Forms, p. 298
Answers for the paragraphs will vary.
  1. celebrate
  2. make
  3. tells
  4. invites
  5. sell
  6. promote
  7. act
  8. behave
  9. appeal
  10. play
  11. promises
  12. tells
  13. is
  14. make
  15. helps
  16. work
  17. are
  18. spend
  19. grow
        Commercials on television celebrate youth, and in so doing make us afraid of growing old.  One commercial tells us to “Think young”; another invites us to “Join the Pepsi generation.”  While older people in commercials behave like children, young people act like adults, with teenage actors selling soft drinks and jeans, and little children promoting cereals and candy.  The advertisers not only appeal to our vanity but also play on our fears.  A soap commercial promises “younger-looking skin”; a commercial for hair-dye products tells us to “Wash away that gray.”  There are ads for all sorts of little yellow pills: One pill is guaranteed to make you “feel alive,” another to help you “be your young self again.”  Such appeals to our vanity and fear obviously work, for Americans are bamboozled into spending millions of dollars each year in search of the Fountain of Youth.  Meanwhile, we till grow older but no wiser.

Answers to Exercise on Making Verbs Agree with Their Subjects, p. 299-300

  1. supports
  2. wants
  3. has
  4. is
  5. belongs
  6. seems
  7. needs
  8. is
  9. is
  10. wants


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