is or are?
Q. In the sentence: "If 15 liters of juice is divided
between three people........" Is it correct to say ".....liters of juice IS" or
"ARE"? Also, how about: " There are 5 liters of oil in a container." - Should it
be ARE or IS, and are the above sentences different in any way? I am really
confused about this!
A. Both of these should be "are." The subject of each sentence
is "liters," which is a plural. "Of juice" and "of oil" are prepositional phrases. The
vrb should agree with the subject, not the object of the preposition.
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