Grammar

‘Consensus’ is a singular countable noun, so the indefinite article ‘a’ correctly precedes it, giving answer A. Choice B (‘an’) is wrong because ‘consensus’ begins with a consonant sound /k/, not a vowel sound, and ‘the’ would suggest a particular, previously mentioned consensus rather than the general notion intended.

The phrase 'a number of' acts as a plural determiner, requiring the plural verb 'were' to agree with the plural noun 'students.' Option A is incorrect because 'was' is singular, which would only be appropriate if the subject used 'the number of' to denote a single collective unit.

‘Consensus’ is a singular countable noun, so the indefinite article ‘a’ correctly precedes it, giving answer A. A diagram for this topic isn't available yet — the worked example below walks the same reasoning step by step.

• !Choice B (‘an’) is wrong because ‘consensus’ begins with a consonant sound /k/, not a vowel sound, and ‘the’ would suggest a particular, previously mentioned consensus rather than the general notion intended.
• !nor' with subjects of different numbers, the verb must agree with the closer subject, which is the singular noun 'teacher.' Option A is incorrect because 'were' is plural and incorrectly agrees with the more distant s...
• !Options like 'criterias' or 'criterions' are incorrect because they apply standard English plural endings to a loanword that does not accept them.
• !The phrase 'a number of' acts as a plural determiner, requiring the plural verb 'were' to agree with the plural noun 'students.' Option A is incorrect because 'was' is singular, which would only be appropriate if the...
• !In contrast, "Furthermore" is incorrect because it is used to add supplementary information, while "Therefore" indicates a cause-and-effect relationship rather than opposition.

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