What is the Subject here ?

[rahul.sehgal@btgchampion]

I was reading an article and thus came up with this question. The statement is given below -

"The study found that the negative emotional effect of disruptive events - things like being interrupted while in the middle of doing something - were amplified by sleep loss."

I thought, the subject here is 'negative emotional effect'. But, going by the verb 'were', it seems the subject here is 'things'.

Am I missing something in my understanding here with respect to Subject Verb Agreement ?

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Hi Rahul,

This is a badly written sentence. You ARE correct: the subject is "negative emotional effect", which is singular. The verb doesn't match the subject. Assuming we ignore the style issues with the sentence, the author could have solved the problem that you noted by turning the subject into a plural: "negative emotional effects."

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[rahul.sehgal@btgchampion]

Thanks for Clarifying Rich.

[Bill@VeritasPrep]

That's a mistake that you can find in a lot of places. I find reading blogs and correcting their grammar to be a decent exercise in going from everyday language to GMAT language.

[rahul.sehgal@btgchampion]

I agree Bill. This was one of the articles from Business Insider.

As I was reading, I told myself to focus on understanding the Subject Verb agreement as well and thus came up with the question.

I am planning to start reading more of GMAT style writing material from sources such as The Economist, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, etc.

Let me know in case you see any issues with the plan. Thank you for your reply !!

[rahul.sehgal@btgchampion]

I agree Bill. This was one of the articles from Business Insider.

As I was reading, I told myself to focus on understanding the Subject Verb agreement as well and thus came up with the question.

I am planning to start reading more of GMAT style writing material from sources such as The Economist, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, etc.

Let me know in case you see any issues with the plan. Thank you for your reply !!

[Bill@VeritasPrep]

I think that's a very good plan because it will also help with Reading Comprehension if you use your RC strategy while doing them.

If you're into sports, ESPN.com usually has some grammatical problems with their articles. Lately I've noticed a lot of sentences that give you everything (subject, modifiers, clauses) but no actual verb to pair with the subject

[rahul.sehgal@btgchampion]

Yes, I do read about sports as well. I normally prefer www.cricinfo.com and it is basically related to Cricket (a sport Indians love playing and seeing ).

But, going forward, I will check ESPN.com as well to make sure I am able to spot the errors you specified. Thanks once again for your prompt reply.