The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently unveiled a new wing dedicated to contemporary sculpture. The sculptures on display, which each...

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 Metropolitan Museum of Art recently unveiled a new wing dedicated to contemporary sculpture.
• The sculptures on display,
  • which each represent a different artistic movement from the past fifty years,
  • [?] on themes of identity and social change, though some also incorporate elements of environmental commentary.

Understanding the Meaning

• Let's start from the beginning:
• The first sentence gives us background:
  • 'The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently unveiled a new wing dedicated to contemporary sculpture.'
    • The Met opened a new section for modern sculpture.
• Now the second sentence is about those sculptures:
• 'The sculptures on display'
  • This is what we're talking about - the sculptures currently being shown
  • 'sculptures' is plural - we're talking about multiple works of art
• 'which each represent a different artistic movement from the past fifty years'
  • This part, set off by commas, gives us extra information about the sculptures
  • Each one represents a different movement from recent art history
• Now here's where we need to fill in the blank:
  • 'The sculptures on display ______ on themes of identity and social change'
• Let's look at our choices:
  • A: concentrates (singular)
  • B: focus (plural)
  • C: was focusing (singular, past)
  • D: is focused (singular, passive)
• What do we notice?
  • Our subject is 'The sculptures' - that's plural
  • The verb needs to agree with this plural subject
  • Even though there's a descriptive clause in between with the word 'each,' that's just giving extra information about the sculptures
  • The main verb still needs to match 'sculptures'
• So we need the plural form: focus
• Now let's read the rest to see the complete picture:
  • 'though some also incorporate elements of environmental commentary'
    • This adds that while identity and social change are the main themes, some sculptures also include environmental ideas

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Verbs to Their Subjects (Subject-Verb Agreement)

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

The tricky part comes when words separate the subject from the verb:

Example 1: No separation

• The sculptures focus on social themes. ✓
• The sculpture focuses on social themes. ✓
• The sculptures focuses on social themes. ✗ (plural subject + singular verb = error)

Example 2: With descriptive information in between

• The sculptures, which are made of bronze, focus on social themes. ✓
• The sculpture, which is made of bronze, focuses on social themes. ✓

The strategy:

• Identify the true subject (what the sentence is about)
• Mentally connect it directly to the verb, skipping over the descriptive parts
• Make sure they match in number

In this question:

• Subject: "The sculptures" (plural)
• Descriptive clause in between: "which each represent a different artistic movement..."
• Verb needed: "focus" (plural) to match "sculptures"
• Don't be distracted by "each" in the descriptive clause - that's not the subject of the main verb