Manhattan SC doubt

Question

A) Students at Carver High School are encouraged to pursue only those  extracurricular activities  from which stems success in college applications
B) success in college applications stems.

I had a doubt regarding subject verb agreement .

Here the students are encouraged to pursue activities which is plural ->  Why are we using singular verb stems with this sentence ?

bangsatul · Answer

Hi,
It is because "stems" refers to success, which is singular.
Hope that helps.

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sahilbhatia21 · Answer

From which would refer to extra curricular activities therefore 'stems' won't work here because 'stems' is singular.

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  renjana , this is what is called as  inverted sentence , wherein the Verb is used  before  the subject.

The non-inverted sentence is:

Success in college applications stems from extracurricular activities.

Now it is very clear that  success  is the subject and hence,  stems  is the correct verb.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  inverted constructs , their application and examples in detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

ccooley · Answer

One way to figure something like this out is to change the part of the sentence from a modifier, into an independent clause.

For example:

These are the candies  which I bought  = I bought the candies
We visited the town  in which I was born  = I was born in this town
Students are encouraged to pursue activities  from which stems success  = Success stems from these activities

It sounds really awkward to use the singular, but it's correct because you aren't saying that the  activities  stem. You're saying that  success  stems  from  the activities. In that sentence, 'success' is the subject, and success is singular, so 'stems' is the right verb.

You can tell that 'activities' isn't the subject because there's a 'from' in front of the word 'which', telling you that 'from activities' should be part of the sentence. 'From activities' is a prepositional phrase, so it can't be the subject. 'Success' is the only thing that can be the subject here.

Manhattan SC doubt

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