The ACT's favorite trick is separating the subject from its verb with a long intervening clause. Your ear hears the nearest noun and matches the verb to it — but that noun is not the subject.
Mentally cross out everything between the subject and verb:
The collection of rare stamps
that my grandmother kept in her attic for decadeswas donated to the museum.
Subject = "collection" (singular) → verb = "was" (singular). The phrase "rare stamps" is a trap — it's the object of "of," not the subject.
| Pattern | Subject | Trap Noun | Correct Verb |
|---|---|---|---|
| "The [singular] of [plural]..." | singular | plural nearby | singular verb |
| "[Plural], along with [singular],..." | plural | singular nearby | plural verb |
| "Each of the [plural]..." | each (singular) | plural | singular verb |
| "Neither [A] nor [B]..." | B | A | agrees with B |
Pronouns must match their antecedent in number and person. The ACT tests this with:
The ACT expects tense consistency within a paragraph unless there is a clear reason to shift (a time marker like "yesterday," "by next year," "before that").
Strategy: Identify the dominant tense of the paragraph. If the paragraph is in past tense, a random present-tense verb in the underlined portion is almost certainly wrong — unless a time-shift word justifies it.
A modifier must be next to the word it modifies. If a sentence opens with a modifying phrase, the subject of the main clause must be the thing being modified.
Wrong: Running through the park, the trees were beautiful. Right: Running through the park, she noticed the beautiful trees.
"Running through the park" must modify a person, not trees. The ACT loves this pattern — look for dangling modifiers at the start of sentences.