GMAT & MBA Admissions

GMAT Review Series: Sentence Correction - Subject/Verb Agreement

Written by Morgan Bissett-Tessier | August 1, 2019 2:00:00 PM Z

In this portion of our GMAT Review Series, we’ll take a look at a Sentence Correction: Subject/Verb Agreement question from the Official GMAT Guide 2019 - Verbal Diagnostic. Remember to always use the non-underlined portion of the sentence in question as the answer key to match the underlined segment to. 

Key pointers from this video:  

  1. Begin by setting up your scratch pad to help you ID the Error Category
    Write the question number with a line beside it to write the error when you identify it. You are looking for a category, not a single specific error. Answer choices go below it (a, b, c, d, e). In this example, we ID subject/verb agreement as the error.
     
  2. Read Carefully to Find Intended Subject
    The intended subject here is "The discovery of inscribed shards". Discovery is singular. So you can eliminate the plural verb answers (a and b) on your scratch pad. You always want to make sure you're evaluating the category of error and not just the individual error (indicate vs. indicates). 

  3. Utilize Obvious & Easy 2/3 Choice Splits
    In this case there is an obvious 2/3 split between indicate and indicates. Focus attention there first. Then there are two answer choices with inserted pronouns (their). After further examination, we can eliminate choices c and d due to pronoun agreement. The only choice you're left with is the correct one, answer choice e. 

This video was produced by MyGuru's Director of Online Instruction and expert online GMAT tutor Stefan Maisnier. Visit our YouTube channel for more GMAT tutorial videos.