Q&A - PSLE English

[D3-n]

The difference between 2 and 3 is that while a fat or chubby boy can look pallid, a fat or chubby boy can never look gaunt. Hope this clarifies things further.

[NerdyMath]

Please help with This synthesis: )


Paul decided to go to the library. Everyone agreed.

Everyone agreed to ____________________________

[sharonkhoo]

NerdyMath:

Please help with This synthesis: )


Paul decided to go to the library. Everyone agreed.

Everyone agreed to ____________________________

The original 2 sentences are not very clear. They can be interpreted as everyone agreeing that Paul should go to the library or that everyone agreeing to go to the library with him. Maybe even more possibilities? So the possible syntheses could be:

Everyone agreed to ('agreed with' would be a better choice here) Paul's decision to go to the library. (This sentence would make it unclear whether they went with him or not.)
Everyone agreed to go to the library with Paul.

Not a good question.

[D3-n]

NerdyMath:

Please help with This synthesis: )


Paul decided to go to the library. Everyone agreed.

Everyone agreed to ____________________________

Everyone agreed to Paul's decision to go to the library.


agree to is used for a plan or suggestion

So in this case, everyone will go with Paul to the library.

To sidetrack, for...
Everyone agreed with Paul's decision to go to the library.

Here, everyone here is ok with Paul going to the library, but they need not neccessarily want to go with him.

[by0535]

Dear parents,


Do you know any friends from China whose children are taking the PSLE soon? As part of our school project to create a Singapore heart map, we would like to help mark English and Chinese compositions at no charge. Interested parents do contact us at [email protected]

Thank you!

[mckenzy]

Need experts to fall-in:


All the children but one LIKE durian or;
All the children but one LIKES durian

…sigh…

[jetsetter]

LIKE (to agree with Subject "ALL").



Btw, semi-colon ";" is placed before "or".

[mckenzy]

thanks jetsetter. so much to learn.


i thought it was referring to ‘but one’

so it always refers to the first entity in the sentence?

[jetsetter]

mckenzy:

thanks jetsetter. so much to learn.


i thought it was referring to 'but one'

so it always refers to the first entity in the sentence?

Not always referring to the first entity. You must focus on \"all but\" instead of \"but one\".

\"All but\" = almost, nearly, everything except for 1, everything save/bar 1. That means TOTAL minus 1 child., i.e. plural.


Now consider \"none but\".

\"None but\" = only

Although \"none\" is historically singular (zero), it could be plural in some instances such as the above. So you don't nec look at the first (noun) entity, but the second entity that follows the idiomatic expression \"none but\".

None but fools love Mary.
None but you love her.
None but two boys were present.
None but the brave deserve my respect.

[mckenzy]

[quote]None but fools love Mary.

None but you love her.
None but two boys were present.
None but the brave deserve my respect.[/quote]For these examples we are using the rule that the verb-but(?) agrees with the noun next to it?