<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>