The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both preserved under volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 CE, _____...

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

• The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum,
• both preserved under volcanic ash
• from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 CE,
• [?] invaluable insights into daily life in ancient Rome,
• including details about architecture, commerce, and social customs.
• Where [?] = has provided / provides / was providing / provide

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum'

• This is talking about two famous archaeological sites
• Notice that 'sites' is plural - and we have TWO of them (Pompeii AND Herculaneum)

Then we get some descriptive information:

• 'both preserved under volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 CE'
  • This is just giving us background about these sites
  • They were both buried and preserved by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted

Now here's where we need to fill in the blank:
'The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum...______ invaluable insights'

Let's look at our choices:

• We're deciding between different verb forms
• Some are singular (has provided, provides, was providing)
• One is plural (provide)

What do we notice about our subject?

• The subject is 'The archaeological sites' - this is PLURAL
• We have 'sites' (plural word)
• And we're talking about TWO sites: Pompeii AND Herculaneum

So we need a plural verb form to match this plural subject: provide

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

• 'provide invaluable insights into daily life in ancient Rome, including details about architecture, commerce, and social customs'
• This is telling us what these sites do - they give us valuable information about how people lived in ancient Rome

The complete meaning: These two archaeological sites give us incredibly valuable information about daily life in ancient Rome, including specific details about buildings, business, and how society worked.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Subject-Verb Agreement with Compound Subjects and Intervening Phrases

When you have a compound subject (two or more things joined by 'and'), the subject is PLURAL and needs a plural verb:

Pattern:

• Single subject: The site provides insights (singular)
• Compound subject: The sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum provide insights (plural)

Watch out for intervening phrases:

Sometimes there's descriptive information between the subject and verb that can distract you:

• Subject: The archaeological sites
• Intervening description: both preserved under volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 CE
• Verb: provide (must still match the plural subject 'sites')

The descriptive phrase in the middle doesn't change what the subject is - you still need to match your verb to 'sites' (plural), not to any singular words that might appear in the description.

In this question:

• Subject = 'The archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum' (PLURAL)
• Intervening phrase = 'both preserved under volcanic ash...'
• Correct verb = 'provide' (plural, to match the plural subject)