Question

Given below is a sentence with three underlined parts labelled (a), (b) and (c). Find out whether there is any error in any of these parts. If you find no error, your response should be indicated as (d):

Neither praise nor blame
    (a)
seem
    (b)
to affect him.
    (c)
 No error
    (d)


A. (a)
B. (b)
C. (c)
D. (d)

Answer 1

Hint: There are two things mentioned here (praise and blame). Thus, it is plural and not singular. The correct form of verb for plural needs to be used. When you are joining two words, it becomes a plural and thus the verb joining should also be in a plural form.

Complete answer:
The error lies in the word ‘seem’ which is (b). Thus, the option with the error is (b), correct answer is option B.Two singular subjects connected by neither/nor always require a singular verb ‘seems’.
The correct sentence therefore is Neither praise nor blame seems to affect him.
Options A and C do not have errors and option D is incorrect as the sentence will be incomplete but it fits rightly in the sentence.
Refer the below table to check the singular, plural, past tense and past participle of some words. Similarly, you can use it in other words too.

Singular	Plural	Past Tense	Past Participle
catches	catch	caught	caught
flies	fly	flew	flown
knows	know	knew	known
pays	pay	paid	paid
springs	spring	sprang	sprung
writes	write	wrote	written

Hence the correct answer is option ‘B'.

Note: If a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.
In the present tense, nouns and verbs form plurals in opposite ways: nouns ADD an s to the singular form; verbs REMOVE the s from the singular form.
Example:
Singular: The dog chases the cat.
Plural: The dogs chase the cat.
Singular: Those girls talk to me.
Plural: That girl talks to me.