Practice 6: subject-verb agreement
read this passage. underline the subject and verb in each sentence. see if the subject and
verb agree. if they do, write a c above the verb: if not, revise the verb.
the popularity of various baby names have really changed over the last century. each
decade seems to have its "top ten." some names, however, was popular for many years. one
example is the girl's name mary: it was number one for many of the years between 1890 and
1969! the boy's name michael has been first or second for most of the past 30 years!
back in the 1970s and '80s, the number one girl's name was jennifer. for boys jason and
david was favored, followed by matthew and james. if you know anyone born in the '50s or
'60s, you might run across women called susan, patricia, karen, deborah, and donna, and men
named james, john, robert, and william.
over the last ten years, the most popular names for girls has been emily, madison, hannah,
ashley, jessica, and sarah. many of these are spelled in diverse ways. you may have met a
sara, an emilie, or a hana. top names for boys includes michael, jacob, christopher, nicolas,
joshua, and andrew. they do not seem to have the variety of feminine spellings, but they often
have many nicknames. when one looks at the list above, it could says mike, jake, chris, nick,
josh, and andy-or drew!
what fun it is to look back at the names people chose for their babies during different eras
and we haven't even mentioned what influenced those choices, like the movie stars or sports
celebrities of the day. for real fun, one can tries to predict which names will be hot next year!

What do you think is the greatest invention that you use today? explain in 4 sentences

Read the passage, then answer the question that follows. no one could have seen it at the time, but the invention of beet sugar was not just a challenge to cane. it was a hint—just a glimpse, like a twist that comes about two thirds of the way through a movie—that the end of the age of sugar was in sight. for beet sugar showed that in order to create that perfect sweetness you did not need slaves, you did not need plantations, in fact you did not even need cane. beet sugar was a foreshadowing of what we have today: the age of science, in which sweetness is a product of chemistry, not whips. in 1854 only 11 percent of world sugar production came from beets. by 1899 the percentage had risen to about 65 percent. and beet sugar was just the first challenge to cane. by 1879 chemists discovered saccharine—a laboratory-created substance that is several hundred times sweeter than natural sugar. today the sweeteners used in the foods you eat may come from corn (high-fructose corn syrup), from fruit (fructose), or directly from the lab (for example, aspartame, invented in 1965, or sucralose—splenda—created in 1976). brazil is the land that imported more africans than any other to work on sugar plantations, and in brazil the soil is still perfect for sugar. cane grows in brazil today, but not always for sugar. instead, cane is often used to create ethanol, much as corn farmers in america now convert their harvest into fuel. –sugar changed the world, marc aronson and marina budhos how does this passage support the claim that sugar was tied to the struggle for freedom? it shows that the invention of beet sugar created competition for cane sugar. it shows that technology had a role in changing how we sweeten our foods. it shows that the beet sugar trade provided jobs for formerly enslaved workers. it shows that sweeteners did not need to be the product of sugar plantations and slavery.

Compare and contrast spoon river anthology