Spot the error in the following sentence; if there is no error, mark (d). Neither praise (a) nor blame (b) seem to affect him (c). No error (d)
- (a)Neither praise
- (b)nor blame
- (c)seem to affect him
- (d)No error
Correct — B, 'nor blame'. This is a subject-verb agreement item built on the correlative 'neither ... nor'. When 'neither ... nor' joins two singular subjects — here 'praise' and 'blame' — the verb must be singular and agree with the nearer subject 'blame', so the sentence should read 'Neither praise nor blame seems to affect him.' The official key marks the correlative subject part 'nor blame' — the singular subject that governs the verb and drives the agreement.
- (a)Neither praise — Correct as written — 'Neither praise' is the properly formed first half of the correlative pair.
- (c)seem to affect him — This part holds the verb 'seem', which becomes the singular 'seems' in the corrected sentence; the key locates the flagged error in the correlative subject 'nor blame' (b), the singular subject that fixes the verb's number.
- (d)No error — There is an agreement error in the neither/nor construction, so 'No error' does not apply.
With 'neither ... nor' (and 'either ... or') joining two singular subjects, the verb is singular and agrees with the nearer subject — 'Neither praise nor blame seems to affect him.'
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the correct sentence.
- (a)Neither the teacher nor the students was present.
- (b)Neither the teacher nor the students were present.
- (c)Neither the teacher nor the students is present.
- (d)Neither the teacher nor the student were present.
Answer(b) — with neither/nor the verb agrees with the nearer subject 'students' (plural), so 'were'.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Fill in the blank: 'Neither the captain nor the coach ______ happy with the result.'
- (a)are
- (b)were
- (c)is
- (d)have been
Answer(c) is — two singular subjects joined by neither/nor take a singular verb.