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The average worker's earnings have gone up dramatically.

Our thanks go to the workers who supported the union.

The names of sports teams that do not end in "s" will take a plural verb:

The Miami Heat have been looking

The Connecticut Sun are hoping that new talent

10. Fractional expressions such as half of, a part of, a percentage of, a majority of are sometimes

singular and sometimes plural, depending on the meaning. Sums and products of mathematicalprocesses are expressed as singular and require singular verbs.

The expression "more than one" takes a singular verb

More than one student has tried this.

A large percentage of the older population is voting against her.

Two-fifths of the troops were lost in the battle.

Two-fifths of the vineyard was destroyed by fire.

Forty percent of the students are in favor of changing the policy.

Forty percent of the student body is in favor of changing the policy.

Two and two is four.

Four times four divided by two is eight.

11. If your sentence compounds a positive and a negative subject and one is plural, the othersingular, the verb should agree with the positive subject.

The department members but not the chair have decided not to teach on Valentine's Day.

It is not the faculty members but the president who decides this issue.

It was the speaker, not his ideas, that has provoked the students to riot.

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11. Three-quarters of the student body

__________against the tuition hike.

A. is

B. are

12. A high percentage of the population

_________ voting for the new school.

A. is

B. are

13. A high percentage of the people

_________ voting for the new school.

A. was

B. were

14. Carlos is the only one of those students

who __________lived up to the potential

described in the yearbook.

has

have

15. The International Club, as well as the

Choral Society and the Rowing Club,

__________to submit a new constitution.

A. need

B. needs

16. One of my best friends

_____________an extra on Seinfeld this week.

A. are

B. is

17. Not only the students but also their

instructor ________ been called to the

principal's office.

A. have

B. has

18. Most of the milk _____ gone bad. Six

gallons of milk _______ still in the refrigerator.

A. has ---- are

B. have ---- is

19. Each and every student and instructor in

this building __________for a new facility by

next year.

A. hope

B. hopes

20. The students and instructors each

________for a new facility by next year.

A. hopes

B. hope

21. Rice and beans, my favorite dish,

__________me of my native Puerto Rico.

A. remind

B. reminds

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22. A large number of voters still

___________along straight-party lines.

A. votes

B. vote

23. Four years _______ a long time to

spend away from your friends and family.

A. are

B. is

24. Politics __________sometimes a dirty

business.

A. are

B. is

25. To an outsider, the economics of this

country ________ to be in disarray.

A. seem

B. seems

26. The piano as well as the pipe organ

____________ to be tuned for the big concert.

A. has

B. have

27. The mayor together with his two

brothers ____________ going to be indicted for

accepting bribes.

A. are

B. is

28. Neither of my two suitcases

____________ adequate for this trip.

A. is

B. are

29. There ____________ a list of committee

members on the head-table.

A. are

B. is

30. Everybody in the class ____________

done the homework well in advance.

A. has

B. have

31. The jury ____________ their seats in

the courtroom.

A. take

B. takes

32. Neither the teacher nor the students

____________ to understand this assignment.

A. seem

B. seems

33. ____________ either my father or my

brothers made a down-payment on the house?

A. has

B. have

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34. Hartford is one of those cities that

____________ working hard to reclaim a

riverfront.

A. is

B. are

35. Some of the grain ____________ gone

bad.

A. have

B. has

36. John or his brother ____________ goingto be responsible for this.

A. are

B. is

37. A few of the students ____________

doing so well they can skip the next course.

A. are

B. is

38. Either the Committee on Course Design

or the Committee on College Operations

____________ these matters.

A. decide

B. decides

39. One of my instructors ____________written a letter of recommendation for me.

A. have

B. has

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Practice 2: Choose the correct answer for each question

Soccer or football (or foosball or futbol), as it is called by the rest of the world outside the United

States 1.__________(is / are) surely the most popular sport in the world. Every four years, the world

championship of soccer, the World Cup, 2.__________(is / are) watched by literally billions all over the

world, beating out the United States professional football's Super bowl by far. It is estimated that 1.7

billion television viewers watched the World Cup final between France and Brazil in July of 1998. And it

is also a genuine world championship, involving teams from 32 countries in the final rounds, unlike the

much more parochial and misnamed World Series in American baseball (that 3.__________(do not /

does not) even involve Japan or Cuba, two baseball hotbeds). But although soccer has become an

important sport in the American sports scene, it will never make inroads into the hearts and markets of

American sports the way that football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and even tennis and golf

4.__________(have / has) done. There are many reasons for this.

Recently the New England Revolution beat the Tampa Bay Mutiny in a game played during a horrid

rainstorm. Nearly 5000 fans showed up, which 5.__________(show / shows) that soccer is, indeed,

popular in the United States. However, the story of the game 6.__________(was / were) buried near

the back of the newspaper's sports section, and there 7.__________(was / were) certainly no

television coverage. In fact, the biggest reason for soccer's failure as a mass appeal sport in the United

States is that it doesn't conform easily to the demands of television. Basketball succeeds enormously in

America because it regularly 8.__________(schedules / schedule) what it calls "television time-outs" as

well as the time-outs that the teams themselves call to re-group, not to mention half-times and, on the

professional level, quarter breaks. Those time-outs in the action 9.__________(is / are) ideally made

for television commercials. And television coverage is the lifeblood of American sports. College

basketball 10.__________(lives / live) for a game scheduled on CBS or ESPN (highly recruited high

school players are more likely to go to a team that regularly gets national television exposure), and we

could even say that television coverage 11.__________(has / have) dictated the pace and feel of

American football. Anyone who 12.__________(has / have) attended a live football game knows how

commercial time-outs 13.__________(slows / slow) the game and sometimes, at its most exciting

moments, 14.__________(disrupts / disrupt) the flow of events. There is no serious objection,

however, because without television, football knows that it simply wouldn't remain in the homes and

hearts of Americans. Also, without those advertising dollars, the teams couldn't afford the sky-high

salaries of their high-priced superstars.

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Soccer, on the other hand, except for its half-time break, has no time-outs; except for half-time, it

is constant run, run, run, run, back and forth, back and forth, relentlessly, with only a few seconds of

relaxation when a goal is scored, and that can happen seldom, sometimes never. The best that

commercial television coverage can hope for is an injury time-out, and in soccer that

15.__________(happens / happen) only with decapitation or disembowelment.

Second, Americans love their violence, and soccer doesn't deliver on this score the way that

American football and hockey 16.__________(does / do) . There are brief moments, spurts of violence,

yes, but fans can't expect the full-time menu of bone-crushing carnage that American football and

hockey can deliver minute after minute, game after game. In soccer, players are actually singled out

and warned shamed, with embarrassingly silly "yellow cards," for acts of violence and duplicity that

would be smiled at in most American sports other than tennis and golf.

Third, it is just too difficult to score in soccer. America 17.__________(loves / love) its footballgames with scores like 49 to 35 and a professional basketball game with scores below 100

18.__________(is / are) regarded as a defensive bore. In soccer, on the other hand, scores like 2 to 1,

even 1 to 0, 19.__________(is / are) commonplace and apparently desirable; games scoreless at the

end of regulation time happen all the time. (In the 515 games played in the final phase in the history of

the World Cup games through 1994, only 1584 goals 20.__________(was / were) scored. That's three a

game!) And if there 21.__________(is / are) no resolution at the end of overtime, the teams resort to a

shoot-out that 22.__________(has / have) more to do with luck than with real soccer skills. Worse yet,

it is possible for a team to dominate in terms of sheer talent and "shots-on-goal" and still lose the

game by virtue of a momentary lapse in defensive attention, a stroke of bad luck, and the opponent's

break-away goal. Things like that can happen, too, in baseball, but the problem somehow

23.__________(evens / even) out over baseball's very long season of daily games. In soccer, it just isn't

fair. Soccer authorities should consider making the goal smaller and doing away with the goalie to

make scoring easier. And the business of starting over after each goal, in the middle of the field,

24.__________(has / have) to be reconsidered. It's too much like the center-jump after each goal in

the basketball game of yesteryear.

It 25.__________(seems / seem) unlikely that Americans will ever fully comprehend or appreciate a

sport in which players are not allowed to use their arms and hands. Although the footwork of soccer

players 26.__________(is / are) a magnificent skill to behold, most American fans are perplexed by

straitjacketed soccer players' inability and unwillingness to "pick up the darn ball and run with it!" The

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inability to use substitutes (unless the players to be substituted for are lying dead or maimed on the

field of play) 27.__________(is / are) also bewildering to Americans, who glorify the "sixth man" in

basketball and a baseball game in which virtually the entire roster (including an otherwise

unemployable old man called "the designated hitter") 28.__________(is / are) deployed on the field at

one time or another.

Finally, the field in soccer is enormous. Considerably larger than the American football field, the

soccer field could contain at least a dozen basketball courts. Americans like their action condensed, in a

small field of vision ten enormous sweaty people bouncing off one another and moving rapidly

through a space the size of a medium-sized bedroom, twenty-two even larger people in bulky uniforms

converging on a small, oddly shaped ball. In soccer, on the other hand, there 29.__________(is / are) a

premium on "spreading out," not infringing upon the force field occupied by a team-mate, so that

fancy foot-passing is possible. This spreading out across the vast meadow of the soccer playing field

30.__________(does / do) not lend itself, again, to close get-down-and-dirty television scrutiny. Soccer

is a great sport and it certainly 31.__________(deserves / deserve) the increased attention and

popularity it is getting on all levels. But primarily, again, because it does not lend itself to television

it will never make it big in the United States the way these other sports 32.__________(has / have) ,

not until it 33.__________(changes / change) some of its fundamental strategies.

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READING

(5 minutes)

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Reading Comprehension Quiz

(2 minutes / question)

1. According to the article, an endangered

species is one that:

A. is already extinct in some parts of the

world

B. is extremely dangerous to humans

C. will likely die out in its natural

surroundings

D. is threatened by members of the ESA

2. What poses the greatest threat to polar

bears today?

A. over hunting

B. climate change

C. polluted water

D. politicians

3. What major change has occurred in the

polar bear's natural habitat?

A. The air temperature has become much

colder.

B. The ice has become extremely polluted.

C. The amount of sea ice has drastically

reduced.

D. The land has disappeared altogether.

4. What type of conservation efforts are

people generally interested in?

A. saving insects and birds

B. protecting large animals like bears

C. reforestation projects

D. preserving animals that human eats

5. According to the World Wildlife Fund

polar bear studies help researchers determine.

A. the overall health of the Arctic

B. how long it will be until populations are

extinct

C. whether or not man has any impact on

the environment

D. where humans should build in the Arctic

6. Why is it so important for endangered

animals to get on a formal list?

A. More will be charged for hunting them.

B. More funds become available for

recovery efforts.

C. People vote for different leaders.

D. Agencies can remove animals from

natural habitats.

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LISTENING

SPELLING EXERCISES

1. Fill in the blanks below. Example: Nicholas:

Word 1: ____________________ Word 2: _______________________

Word 3: ____________________ Word 4: _______________________

Word 5: ____________________ Word 6: ______________________

Word 7: ____________________ Word 8: _______________________

Word 9: ____________________ Word 10: ______________________

2. Fill in the blanks below:

Number 1: __________________ Number 2: _____________________

Number 3: __________________ Number 4: _____________________

Number 5: __________________ Number 6: ____________________

Number 7: __________________ Number 8: _____________________

Number 9: __________________ Number 10: ____________________