Archaeological discoveries in ancient Mesopotamia have revolutionized our understanding of early human civilization. The cuneiform tablets unearthed a...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Archaeological discoveries in ancient Mesopotamia
  • have revolutionized our understanding
    • of early human civilization.

• The cuneiform tablets
  • unearthed at various sites
• _____ (?)
• among the oldest known examples
  • of systematic writing,
  • dating back nearly 5,000 years.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us context:

• Archaeological discoveries in ancient Mesopotamia
  • have revolutionized our understanding of early human civilization.
  • These discoveries have completely changed how we understand early civilization.

Now the second sentence tells us more specifically about these discoveries:

• 'The cuneiform tablets unearthed at various sites...'
  • We're talking about specific tablets
  • 'unearthed at various sites' describes which tablets - ones that were dug up at different archaeological locations

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank:

• 'The cuneiform tablets unearthed at various sites _____'

Let's look at our choices:

• is / was / has been / are
• These are all forms of 'to be' but they differ in whether they're singular or plural

What do we need based on what we've read?

• Our subject is 'tablets' - that's PLURAL (more than one tablet)
• The phrase 'unearthed at various sites' is just describing the tablets
• So we need a PLURAL verb to match 'tablets'
• Looking at our choices: 'are' is the only plural form

So we need are.

Now let's read the rest to see the complete picture:

• 'among the oldest known examples of systematic writing, dating back nearly 5,000 years.'
  • This tells us these tablets are among the very oldest examples of organized writing systems
  • They go back almost 5,000 years

The complete meaning: The cuneiform tablets that have been found at various archaeological sites are among the oldest known examples of systematic writing, dating back nearly 5,000 years.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• 'The cuneiform tablets' is our subject - and it's plural
• 'unearthed at various sites' sits between the subject and the verb, but it's just a describing phrase
• We need a verb that matches our plural subject 'tablets'

The correct answer is D (are) - the plural verb form that agrees with the plural subject 'tablets.'

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verbs to Their Subjects (Subject-Verb Agreement)

The verb in a sentence must match its subject in number - if the subject is singular, use a singular verb; if the subject is plural, use a plural verb (called subject-verb agreement in grammar terms).

The tricky part: Sometimes describing phrases come between the subject and the verb, but these phrases don't change what verb form you need.

Pattern:

• Subject + describing phrase + Verb
• The verb must match the subject, not the words in between

Examples:

Correct: "The student with excellent grades is graduating."

• Subject: 'student' (singular)
• Describing phrase: 'with excellent grades'
• Verb: 'is' (singular)

Incorrect: "The student with excellent grades are graduating."

• Subject: 'student' (singular)
• Verb: 'are' (plural)
• Doesn't match!

Correct: "The books on the shelf are dusty."

• Subject: 'books' (plural)
• Describing phrase: 'on the shelf'
• Verb: 'are' (plural)

In our question:

• Subject: 'The cuneiform tablets' (plural)
• Describing phrase: 'unearthed at various sites'
• Verb needed: 'are' (plural)

Even though 'sites' (the last word before the blank) is also plural, it's not the subject - it's just part of the describing phrase. We match the verb to 'tablets,' our true subject.