Q&A - PSLE English

[meimeitan]

Hi TAS


May I know the verb for \"several of the luggage\" should be

(1) was / is / has

(2) were / are / have?

Thks.

meimeitan

[Nebbermind]

wah…I thought this thread will be in hibernation for at least 3 mths since the English paper is over!

[shania-m]

meimeitan:

Hi TAS


May I know the verb for \"several of the luggage\" should be

(1) was / is / has

(2) were / are / have?

Thks.

meimeitan

Shouldn't it be 'several pieces of luggage'? If that were so, then the answer should be in the plural form.

[meimeitan]

Hi


Thanks for both of u prompt reply. I just copy the exact wording from the past year paper. The whole sentence is

Several of the luggage ____________ damaged when the trolley fell down the stairs.

(1) is
(2) are
(3) was
(4) were

Then, what is the correct answer?

thanks.

meimeitan

[The Alternative Story]

meimeitan:

Hi


Thanks for both of u prompt reply. I just copy the exact wording from the past year paper. The whole sentence is

Several of the luggage ____________ damaged when the trolley fell down the stairs.

(1) is
(2) are
(3) was
(4) were

Then, what is the correct answer?

thanks.

meimeitan

Hi meimeitan,

We agree with what shania-m has mentioned, that it should be
several pieces of the luggage or several of the luggage bags.
Anyway, in this case, grammatically the question does not
seem correct ('several of the luggage' is grammatically wrong).
However, if we take it to mean that the writer means
several pieces of the luggage, than the answer would be
(4) 'were'.

It would be in the past tense because of the word
'fell'. As a consequence of the trolley falling down the stairs,
the luggage bags were damaged. As the whole incident
happened in the past, we can leave out option (1) and (2).

We also choose the plural form 'were' and not 'was' as
we are talking about 'several' pieces of luggage.

TAS

[Learning Partners]

meimeitan:

Hi


Thanks for both of u prompt reply. I just copy the exact wording from the past year paper. The whole sentence is

Several of the luggage ____________ damaged when the trolley fell down the stairs.

(1) is
(2) are
(3) was
(4) were

Then, what is the correct answer?

thanks.

meimeitan

Hi Mei Mei,

In this case, the question has been wrongly set.

'Luggage' is an uncountable noun and uncountable nouns by themselves are singular.

As 'luggage' is uncountable, we cannot use the phrase 'several of the luggage' because 'several' is only used to describe countable nouns.



So the sentence should read:

The luggage was damaged when the trolley fell down the stairs.



The other way is to correct it the way shania-m did, by adding the word 'pieces' into the sentence and then 'several pieces of luggage' would be in the plural form.



Other uncountable nouns that are commonly tested include:
- news
- furniture
- money
- garbage
- equipment



Note that children often get confused about the noun 'money'.

This is because they think that money can be counted so it shouldn't be considered 'uncountable'.

They need to understand that in English, when we say 'money' is uncountable, it means that we do not say 'one money', 'two money'.

Instead, what we count are 'dollars' and 'cents'.

Hence, 'dollar' is a countable noun. So is 'cent', but not 'money'.



Learning Partners

[pebble]

Hi parents, need help on this question as I have doubt on the answer provided by my kid’s teacher :


Mary, like many others, _________ forced to leave the village due to the war.
1) Had
2) Have
3) was
4) were

[Muffins]

it's \"was\". focus on mary. once there is a comma there, it's called a \"distractory phrase\" as my teacher put it.


So the answer is \"was\"

[pebble]

Thank Muffins ! This is what I told my girl, to concentrate on Mary and she wrote \" was\" but her tuition teacher told her that it should be \" were\" , :slapshead:

[jtoh]

pebble:

Thank Muffins ! This is what I told my girl, to concentrate on Mary and she wrote \" was\" but her tuition teacher told her that it should be \" were\" , :slapshead:

The answer is 'was'. Maybe you should check on your tutor.