The given sentence is divided into four segments. Select the option that has the segment with a grammatical error. Two of the world’s / best forwards / has played alongside / David Beckham.
- (a)has played alongside
- (b)best forwards
- (c)Two of the world’s
- (d)David Beckham.
Answer
Why
Correct — A. Locate the subject first, then test the verb against it.
Rule: in a partitive — a number word, then "of the …" — the verb agrees with the head word, not with the noun inside the of-phrase.
The subject is Two of the world's best forwards, and its head word is Two, which is plural. So the verb must be plural. Change the head word to "One" and the same sentence needs has.
has played is therefore the fault. The sentence needs have played alongside → option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)best forwards — best forwards is sound. "Forwards" is the standard plural of the football position, and a superlative sits normally in front of a plural count noun.
- (c)Two of the world’s — Two of the world's is an ordinary partitive phrase. The possessive is correctly formed and "two of the" regularly introduces a plural subject.
- (d)David Beckham. — David Beckham is the object of the preposition "alongside", correctly spelt and correctly placed. A bare proper noun has nothing here to get wrong.
Concept
Spot-the-error items break a sentence into four segments and put the fault in exactly one of them. The quickest route is to find the subject, then check the verb against it.
What makes agreement errors hard to see is distance. An of-phrase between subject and verb parks a noun right next to the verb that is not the subject, and the ear follows the nearer noun.
Here the head of the subject is Two, and "of the world's best forwards" only says which two. Both words are plural, so the verb has to be plural.
The pair worth memorising is the contrast.
"One of the world's best forwards has played alongside David Beckham" is correct.
"Two of the world's best forwards have played alongside David Beckham" is correct.
Change the number word and the verb must follow it.
Key facts
- "Two of the world's best forwards" is a plural subject and takes the plural verb "have".
- "One of the ..." is a singular subject and takes "has".
- A prepositional phrase standing between subject and verb does not change the verb's number.
- "Alongside" is a preposition here, taking David Beckham as its object.
Study next
Common traps
- Carrying the "One of the ..." habit across to "Two of the ..." and accepting the singular verb.
- Hunting for a spelling or punctuation fault and never testing the verb at all.
- Marking "best forwards" because a superlative next to a plural noun looks unusual.
This stem splits the sentence into four segments and puts the fault in exactly one of them, with the verb a frequent hiding place.
The mirror image is keyed at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.9 — "Mr. Surya / have no interior / motive in offering / you support" — where a singular subject takes a plural verb.
Read that one carefully: the keyed segment also holds a diction fault, interior where the sentence wants 'ulterior', so agreement is not the whole story of that segment.
Agreement also decides English Q.18 in this same shift, where "This book giving us much information" is corrected to "gives us much information".
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.