The standard sentence format in English presents the subject before the verb. In reversed sentences, you need to find the subject and then make sure it matches the verb. To find the subject, fill the following blank with the verb and then ask the question of yourself: who or what _____?
Scenario 1: Subject comes after the verb
Example: Throughout Mammoth Cave National Park run passages covering over 367 miles.
Who or what runs? The passages do. Even though you might be tempted to think “Mammoth Cave National Park” is the subject, it is not doing the action of the verb. Since “passages” is plural, it must match up to a plural verb.
When a sentence begins with there is – there are / here is – here are, the subject and verb are inverted.
The verb in such constructions contains is or are. The subject, however, does not come BEFORE the verb.
Instead, the subject in this kind of sentence comes AFTER the verb, so you must look for it AFTER the verb.
Example: There is a cat under the chair.
In this example, because the subject, cat, is singular, the verb must also be singular.
If the subject is plural, however, then the verb must be plural.
Example: There are cats under the chair.
In this example, because the subject, cats, is plural, the verb is also plural.
Note: In here is – here are / there is – there are constructions, look for the subject AFTER the verb and choose a singular (is) or a plural (are) verb to agree with the subject.
And finally, sometimes creating a question will cause the subject to follow the verb as well. Here, identify the subject and then choose the verb that agrees with it (singular or plural).
