Question

Fill in the blank with a verb that agrees with the subject and not with the complement-
Jason ____ not studying well for the exams.
a- had
b- had been
c- was
d- did

Answer 1

Hint: Subject-verb agreement must accord in number. Either both the subject and the verb should be singular or both should be plural in number.

Complete answer:
As given in the hint, we need to form an appropriate subject-verb agreement.
Example- She has completed the chores. Here, we have used the third person singular verb, ‘has’ with the third person singular pronoun, ‘she’ to form a suitable subject-verb agreement.
In the given question- We are talking about Jason who has not been studying well for the exams. We will use ‘was’, because was + ing form of the verb form past continuous tense.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘had’ is an incorrect option, because ‘had’ is a third-person singular/plural verb that is used to indicate possession. But in the above-given sentence, we cannot see an indication of possession.
Option b- ‘had been’ is an incorrect option, because ‘had been’ is used to form the past perfect continuous tense. The use of ‘had been’ in the above-given sentence produces an illogical meaning.
Option c- ‘was’ is the correct option, because ‘was’ is used with the ing form of a verb to form the past continuous tense form.
Option d- ‘did’ is an incorrect option, because ‘did’ is an auxiliary verb that is used with a main verb. We cannot use ‘did’ with the ing form of the verb.
So, the correct answer is “Option c”.

Note:
It is important to keep in mind that the subject is generally placed before the verb in a sentence or a phrase. Also, the verb depends upon the subject and not the object.