Subject-verb Agreement

Question

1.Neither of the twins              (want/wants) to go to the Fuji Ice Palace with us.

2.All but one of the apples          (have/has) been peeled and cut.

3.The entire staff,including the cleaners,         (gathers/gather/was gathered/were gathered) in the field to bid farewell to their well-loved principal yesterday.

What are the answers for each question?Please explain to me.TQ.

Comments

谢谢提醒已修改

Answer 1

1. Neither of the twins (want/wants) to go to the Fuji Ice Palace with us.

重点为neither of the twins，而非the twins。这里提供两个选择，但两个选择都不是（negative），而neither这个词被视为单式主语（singular subjects），也就是在neither后面的一定是singular noun。

答案为wants。

资料来源：

1. Neither, neither … nor and not … either

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2. All but one of the apples (have/has) been peeled and cut.

重点为 all but one of the apples。在这里，主体不是one，而是all，因此是plural。

答案为have。

资料来源：

Is “all but one” singular or plural?

"All but" singular or plural? Is there a rule to it?

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3. The entire staff, including the cleaners, (gathers/gather/was gathered/were gathered) in the field to bid farewell to their well-loved principal yesterday.

这个我们用排除法：

• gathers： 这个词为simple present tense，只用于singular，而且题目有说明是yesterday。答案错误。
• gather：同为simple present tense，但与题目的yesterday不符。答案错误。
• was gathered：为passive voice，适用于singular，但是the entire staff（全体员工）为plural，因此答案错误。
• were gathered：为passive voice，适用于plural，答案正确。

资料来源：

1. Passive Voice

2. Verb Tenses

Answer 2

谢谢各位的纠正，已修改

     = 关键字&重点

1.Neither of the twins              (want/wants) to go to the Fuji Ice Palace with us.

neither的意思是：两者皆非，两者都不（两个都不选）

so这里的意思是：那两个双胞胎都不想和我们一起去Fuji Ice Palace(地名)

neither是单式主语（singular subjects），所以后面的一定要是singular noun。

singular subjects后面一定要是singular noun

so这题的答案是：wants

2.All but one of the apples          (have/has) been peeled and cut.

这句的意思是：除了一个苹果以外，全部苹果都已经被削皮和切块了

这题的重点是all（全部），因为它主要在讲的是全部的苹果，而不是一个苹果（one）

so这题是plural（复数），plural要用have

答案是：have

3. The entire staff,including the cleaners,         (gathers/gather/was gathered/were gathered) in the field to bid farewell to their well-loved principal yesterday.

整句意思：昨天，全部员工，包括清洁工，聚集在草场为了向他们亲爱的老板道别。

• gather： 这个字是simple present tense，只用于singular，而且题目有说明是yesterday。so答案错误。

• gathers：也是simple present tense，与题目的yesterday不符。so答案错误。

• was gathered：这个字是passive voice，适用于singular，但是the entire staff（全体员工）是plural，因此答案错误。

• were gathered：这个字也是passive voice，适用于plural，答案正确。

Comments

第一题的重点是neither，而不是twins，因此答案错误。
第二题最容易错的地方是all but one，但在这个情况全部除了一个就显示全部代表多过一个，因此用plural。
第三题重点在于the entire staff和yesterday。

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1.Neither of the twins    want          (want/wants) to go to the Fuji Ice Palace with us.

2.All but one of the apples     have    (have/has) been peeled and cut.

3.The entire staff,including the cleaners,    were gathered     (gathers/gather/was gathered/were gathered) in the field to big farewell to their well-loved principal yesterday.

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@Tham080917 第一题错误，请检查多一遍。

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@eudaimonia_x 第一题的neither of 是类似于none of 吗所以要用singular verb?

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请问第三题能用were gathering或gathered吗？用were gathered/were gathering/gathered会改变整个句子的意思吗？哪一个比较适合？

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呃我能够问一下各位请问为什么第三题不可以用gathers吗(不回答也没关系)

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1. "Neither of the twins" also means "none of them". Yes, it's true, but if the total of a thing is zero (not one or more than one), it must be in the singular form.

2. In this sentence, "were gathered" means that the entire staff were called to gather (被聚集在操场）, it's a passive voice usage.
However, if we use "were gathering", it means when it is recorded, the gathering was in progress（聚会在进行中）.
The words "were gathering" is often used in such sentences as:  The entire staff were gathering when we passed through the field.

3. In the third question, we could not use the word "gathers" because it has mentioned that it happened on yesterday, but not today. Hence, we need to use past tense verbs, while "gathers" is considered as a present tense verb.

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针对第一题，可查看：https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/neither-neither-nor-and-not-either_2

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谢谢感激

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eudaimonia_x , 你可以写答案。数字顺序，你也可以修改你的答案，不需要隐藏。