The technology firm announced a major restructuring plan that would transform its operations over the next two years. Among the...

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 technology firm announced a major restructuring plan
• that would transform its operations
• over the next two years.

• Among the board's primary concerns (?) the potential layoffs,
• which could impact hundreds of employees
• across multiple divisions.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start with the first sentence:

• 'The technology firm announced a major restructuring plan'
  • A tech company made an announcement about restructuring

• 'that would transform its operations over the next two years'
  • This plan would significantly change how the company works, and this transformation would happen over two years.

Now the second sentence begins:

• 'Among the board's primary concerns'
  • This tells us we're about to learn what the board was worried about
  • "Among" signals that multiple things were on their list of concerns

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• was (singular, past)
• are (plural, present)
• have been (plural, present perfect)
• were (plural, past)

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues: '_____ the potential layoffs'

• So we're learning that the potential layoffs were one of the board's concerns

• 'which could impact hundreds of employees across multiple divisions'
  • These layoffs weren't small – they could affect hundreds of people in different parts of the company

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The normal word order would be:
  • 'The potential layoffs were among the board's primary concerns'

• But this sentence flips it around (inverts it):
  • 'Among the board's primary concerns were the potential layoffs'

• This means "the potential layoffs" is the subject –
  • the thing we're making a statement about
  • even though it comes AFTER the verb instead of before it

• The word "concerns" is NOT the subject –
  • it's part of the phrase "among the board's primary concerns"
  • which tells us WHERE the layoffs ranked (among their concerns)

Now let's figure out what verb we need:

• The subject is "the potential layoffs" – that's PLURAL

• The time context is the PAST:
  • The firm announced (past tense)
  • At that time, the board had these concerns

So we need a plural, past tense verb: were

The correct answer is D. were

Grammar Concept Applied

Subject-Verb Agreement with Inverted Sentences

Sometimes sentences flip their normal order, placing the subject AFTER the verb instead of before it. This is called inversion. When this happens, you need to identify the true subject carefully to make sure your verb agrees with it.

Normal order:

• The documents are on the desk
  • Subject: "the documents" (plural)
  • Verb: "are" (plural)

Inverted order:

• On the desk are the documents
  • The phrase "on the desk" comes first
  • Verb: "are" (still plural)
  • Subject: "the documents" (still plural, just comes after the verb)
  • The verb still needs to match the subject in number

Common inversion patterns:

• Starting with "Among..." → Among the reasons were cost and time
• Starting with "Here/There..." → There are three options
• Starting with a location → In the corner sits a lonely chair

In our question:

• Inverted: "Among the board's primary concerns were the potential layoffs"
• Normal order would be: "The potential layoffs were among the board's primary concerns"
• Subject: "the potential layoffs" (plural)
• Verb needed: "were" (plural, past)
• Don't be fooled by "concerns" – it's part of the prepositional phrase "among the board's primary concerns," not the subject

Key strategy: When you see an inverted sentence, mentally rewrite it in normal order (subject first, then verb) to identify the true subject and what verb form it needs.