In English, a sentence at least should have a subject and a verb. This is called as Basic Sentence. It is very important for you to find the subject and verb in these sentences. However, certain structures, such as objects of prepositions, appositives,
and participles, can cause confusion in locating the subject and verb because each of
these structures can look like a subject or verb. The most common types of problems that you will face in the Structure section of the TOEFL test have to do with subjects and verbs: perhaps the sentence is missing, or the subject or the verb or both, or perhaps the sentence has an extra subject or verb.
In this example, you should notice that there is no subject. There just a verb (was). Answer (C) is the best answer, because it is a singular subject that agrees with the singular verb was.
Analysis:
· Answer (A) and answer (B) are incorrect. Both of them are not subjects.
· Answer (D) could be a subject, but it is not correct because cars is plural and it does not agree with the singular verb was
In this example you should notice that the sentence that there is no verb. This sentence has a subject (engineers).
Answer (B) is the best answer because are needed is a verb.
Analysis:
· Answers (A), (C), and (D) are not verbs, so they are not correct
The sentence above has a subject (boy). It also has part of a verb (going). Some form of the verb be is needed to make the sentence complete and correct.
Answer (D) is the best answer. will be together with going is a complete verb.
Analysis:
· Answers (A) and (B) are incorrect because the sentence already has a subject (boy) and does not need the extra subject he.
· Answer (C) is incorrect because relaxing is an extra verb part that is unnecessary because of going.
So, you should always remember that:
“A sentence in English must have at least one subject and one verb.”
The chart below outlines what you should remember about subjects and verbs:
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