The village of Panduyacu in Ecuador _______ one of the rare places in the world located almost directly on 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 village
  • of Panduyacu
  • in Ecuador
  • [?] one of the rare places
    • in the world
    • located almost directly on the equator.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'The village of Panduyacu in Ecuador'

We're talking about a specific village:

• Which village? - Panduyacu
• Where is it? - in Ecuador

So our subject is 'the village' - it's ONE village we're discussing.

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

• 'The village of Panduyacu in Ecuador ______ one of the rare places...'

Let's look at our choices:

1. are being (plural)
2. have been (plural)
3. is (singular)
4. are (plural)

What do we notice?

• The subject of the sentence is 'the village' - that's singular.
• 'Of Panduyacu' and 'in Ecuador' are phrases that describe WHICH village and WHERE it is, but they don't change the fact that we're still talking about ONE village.
• A singular subject needs a singular verb.

So we need C. is - the singular form that matches 'village.'

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

'one of the rare places in the world located almost directly on the equator.'

The complete meaning is:

• This village IS one of the rare places in the world that sits almost directly on the equator.
• We're stating a fact about what makes this village special - its location on the equator.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Subject-Verb Agreement with Intervening Phrases

The verb in a sentence must agree in number with its subject - singular subjects take singular verbs, plural subjects take plural verbs. The tricky part? Sometimes phrases come between the subject and verb that can distract you.

The key is to identify the true subject and ignore the prepositional phrases (phrases that start with words like 'of,' 'in,' 'with,' 'for') that might separate the subject from the verb.

Pattern:

• Singular subject + [prepositional phrase(s)] + singular verb
• Plural subject + [prepositional phrase(s)] + plural verb

Examples:

• The box [of chocolates] is on the table.
  • Subject: box (singular)
  • Ignore: of chocolates (prepositional phrase)
  • Verb: is (singular)

• The students [in the classroom] are studying.
  • Subject: students (plural)
  • Ignore: in the classroom (prepositional phrase)
  • Verb: are (plural)

In this question:

• The village [of Panduyacu] [in Ecuador] is one of the rare places...
  • Subject: village (singular)
  • Ignore: of Panduyacu, in Ecuador (prepositional phrases)
  • Verb: is (singular) ✓

The phrases 'of Panduyacu' and 'in Ecuador' tell us more about the village, but the core sentence is still 'The village is one of the rare places...'