Flip It!____________________________________
In most English sentences the subject precedes the verb. However, the GMAT occasionally attemptsto confuse you by inverting this order and placing the subject after the verb. In sentences in which thesubject follows the verb, flip the word order ofthe sentence so that the subject precedes the verb. Thisway, you will identify the subject much more readily.
Wrong: Near those buildings SIT a lonely house, inhabited by squatters.
Flip it! A lonely house, inhabited by squatters, SITS near those buildings.
Right: Near those buildings SITS a lonely house, inhabited by squatters.
In the original sentence, the singular subject house follows the verb. The verb form sit is mistakenlyplural, but your ear may not catch this error because it is near the plural word buildings. By flipping thesentence so that the subject house precedes the verb, we see that we must use the singular form sits.
Wrong: There IS a young man and an older woman at the bus stop.
Flip it! A voung man and an older woman ARE there at the bus stop.
Right: There ARE a voung man and an older woman at the bus stop.
By flipping the sentence so that the subject precedes the verb, we can see that the compound subject ayoung man and an older woman is plural. In spoken English, there is is often used incorrectly with plural subjects. The subject ofa there is or there are expression follows the verb.Look for flipped subjects and verbs in subordinate clauses as well:
Uncertain: Pong is a classic game from which have/has descended many current computerpastimes.
Flip it! Pong is a classic game from which many current computer pastimes HAVE descended.
Right: Pong is a classic game from which HAVE descended many current computer pastimes.
