<p>Okay, so I have a question pertaining to the writing section… Im supposed to be very good when it comes to writing but im having trouble, it seems.</p>
<p>A B C D E
Neither Kylie nor Jason measure up to Carrie . No error . </p>
<p>A(Neither)
B(nor)
C(measure)
D(Carrie)
E(No error)</p>
<p>Apparently, the answer is C… but why???.. is it C or am I mistaken???</p>
<p>Not an English major here, but I think it should read measures. That’s my best guess if C is the correct answer.</p>
<p>C (measures), because neither is singular.</p>
<p>day tripper has the right answer, wrong reason.</p>
<p>Neither is not inherently singular: if it were Neither the men nor the women, then you would say measure.</p>
<p>However, because Jason and Kylie are singular, then you use the singular form of the verb.</p>
<p>Ooh enlightening!</p>
<p>Thanks guys. Good luck on the test. Btw, is anyone getting tips from books like “Up your score”?</p>
<p>t-san is correct.</p>
<p>I hate these questions b/c while I KNOW you are supposed to choose the word that needs changing, visually it just reinforces the error, if you know what I mean. If one option were “measures” you’d see in a flash that that’s the correct word. Bleh.</p>
<p>While we’re on this topic, I just have one question, since I’ve never really solidified my understanding of either, neither, every, each, etc. If the sentence read Neither Jason nor his friends ______ up to Carrie, what would the answer be? I’m leaning measure, because plurals trump, but I really have no idea.</p>
<p>This is the kind of sentence that would not be fair on the test, because grammarians of good will argue endlessly about it. </p>
<p>I vote measure because it sounds better to the ear (as well as being a plural subject.)</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s better to recast the sentence to avoid these things, which of course you can’t do on the SAT. :D</p>
<p>Plural is correct.
Plurals will always trump singular if there is subject-verb confusion in a sentence.</p>
<p>Is this question really off limits? I think its annoying, but very doable if you know the above rule.</p>
<p>OK, this sentence actually has a right answer, but some sentences are argued endlessly by grammarians–such as when the word “couple” is in the subject. There are others I can’t recall at the moment. </p>
<p>Sometimes the “right” answer just grates on the ear and some people opt for what sounds best. Assuming you have an educated ear! 
If you ain’t got one of those, don’t try that method.</p>
<p>Actually, NEVER choose answers based on what sounds good. In fact, what SOUNDS good is 90% of the time WRONG (yes, i pulled that percentage straight out of my rear end). But seriously, just learn to recognize errors like these. There are only a few grammar concepts you need to know (I estimate about 20 or so). Once you know those, any problem is so easy!</p>
<p>ALSO, I find that what helps me on SAT writing is NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ.
Yes, that sounds super weird, but what I mean by that is just read every word as what it IS, not what it MEANS. Usually, even if I do a complete writing section, I can’t recall a single sentence because I didn’t focus on the MEANING of the sentence, but rather the sentence STRUCTURE and FORM. The meaning of the sentence is just a distraction; the meaning only needs to be recognized when there are blatantly illogical things going on in the sentence (which are results of incorrect grammar usage- most often misplaced modifiers).</p>
<p>idk if this helps you but it sure worked for me - i got 800 writing consistently on practices and 800 on the real one. This just sort of happened to me unconsciously as I realized what I was doing to get questions right…</p>
<p>If you have “Neither [plural] nor [singular] [verb]” then [verb] will be singular, b/c the subject right next to it is singular. If [plural] and [singular] are switched it will be plural.</p>