Question

Whenever his family or friend were around he became extremely energetic and hyper.

Q: Answer-Whenever his family or friend were around he became extremely energetic and hyper.

When a compound subject contains both a singular and a plural noun or pronoun joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the part of the subject that is closest to the verb. This is also called the rule of proximity. So, here, since friend is singular, was is correct. Whenever his family or friend was around he became extremely energetic and hyper.

Directions: In each question below, a sentence is given with a part of it printed in bold type. That part may contain a grammatical error. Each sentence is followed by phrases (A), (B), (C) and (D). Find out which phrase should replace the phrase given in bold to correct the error, if there is any, and to make the sentence grammatically meaningful and correct. If the sentence is correct as it is and ‘No correction is required’ , mark (E) as the answer.

A family or friends was around he became

B family nor friend were around he became

C family or friend was around he became

D families or friend were around he became

E No correction is required

Practice Next