so we can sometimes use a plural word for two subjects?

Only when your two subjects are acting the same verb.

So the answer is “early pioneers” because it mentions two people, right?

Yes, the answer is correct because it is plural.

Why is the word pioneers

The correct word is `pioneers` because the sentence is talking about two people. We need to have agreement between the nouns; otherwise, the statement is confusing.

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SAT (Fall 2023)

Course: SAT (Fall 2023) > Unit 11

Lesson 3: Writing: Grammar

Writing: Noun agreement — Basic example

Name: Writing: Noun agreement — Basic example
Uploaded: 2015-09-01T00:09:21Z
Description: Watch Sal work through a noun agreement question from the SAT Writing and Language Test.

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Watch Sal work through a noun agreement question from the SAT Writing and Language Test.

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Aaron Izaguirre
Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Aaron Izaguirre's post “so we can sometimes use a...”
so we can sometimes use a plural word for two subjects?
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(3 votes)
Answer
- vikas
  Posted 2 years ago. Direct link to vikas's post “Only when your two subjec...”
  Only when your two subjects are acting the same verb.
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  (2 votes)
Cordie
Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Cordie's post “So the answer is “early p...”
So the answer is “early pioneers” because it mentions two people, right?
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(2 votes)
Answer
- vikas
  Posted 2 years ago. Direct link to vikas's post “Yes, the answer is correc...”
  Yes, the answer is correct because it is plural.
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  (2 votes)
Matthew Guambo
Posted 8 years ago. Direct link to Matthew Guambo's post “Why is the word pioneers”
Why is the word pioneers
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(0 votes)
Answer
- doctorfoxphd
  Posted 8 years ago. Direct link to doctorfoxphd's post “The correct word is `pion...”
  The correct word is pioneers because the sentence is talking about two people. We need to have agreement between the nouns; otherwise, the statement is confusing.
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  (9 votes)

Video transcript

- [Instructor] Although they came from very different backgrounds, Arthur Brooks and Grace Hopper were an early pioneer in computer programming. All right, so who is an early pioneer? Well, they're talking about two different people being an early pioneer. You have Arthur Brooks and Grace Hopper, so you have two people. You have two people right over here, and two people can't just be one early pioneer as the underlined portion implies. It says an early pioneer. Well, we have two people, so they're both going to be pioneers, so they are both early pioneers. So I would want to replace that with early, actually, maybe we do it this way. I wanna replace this with early pioneers in computer programming 'cause we're talking about two people being pioneers, not just one, and that is this choice right over here. If you look at these other two choices, these would be incorrect because these are still referring to only one person, a pioneer, a very early pioneer. We don't have just one pioneer, we have two pioneers, so that's why we want to go with pioneers.