General English (AEC) — Q&A

SVOC (Subject + Verb + Object + Complement). "They" is the subject, "elected" the verb, "her" the object, and "captain" is an object complement — it renames/describes the object "her", not the subject. Test: ask "what?" after the verb — "elected her" gives the object; "captain" is still the same person as "her", so it is C, not a second object.

SVOA (Subject + Verb + Object + Adverbial). "She" = subject, "put" = verb, "the book" = object (what did she put?), "on the table" = adverbial (where? — place). Note: "put" is one of the few verbs that needs both an object and an adverbial to be complete — "She put the book" alone sounds unfinished.

SVC (Subject + Verb + Complement). "A doctor" renames the subject "she" — she and the doctor are the same person, so it is a complement, not an object. Compare "She visited a doctor" (SVO) — there the doctor is a different person from "she". Rule: if the noun after the verb is the same person/thing as the subject, it is C; if it is different, it is O.

"An honest man is an honour to society." — "an" before "honest" (h is silent, so the first sound is a vowel); "an" before "honour" (same silent-h reason); zero article before "society" (general sense, uncountable — not a particular society).

"He is a university student and an MBA holder." — "university" begins with the consonant sound /j/ (yu-), so it takes "a"; "MBA" is pronounced "em-bee-ay" — the first sound is a vowel sound, so it takes "an". Rule: choose a/an by the first sound, never by the first letter.

"She has been writing a letter since morning." — present perfect continuous (has/have + been + V-ing). It is used for an action that started in the past and is still continuing, with "since" or "for" marking the duration. "Since morning" signals duration up to now, so present perfect continuous is required, not present continuous.

"When I reached the station, the train had left." — past perfect (had + V3). When two actions both happened in the past, the earlier one takes the past perfect and the later one takes the past simple. The train left before I reached, so "had left" is correct.

"Look at those clouds! It is going to rain." — "going to" is used when there is present evidence for a future event (the dark clouds are visible now). "Will rain" would be a mere prediction; "is going to rain" fits because the evidence is in front of us.

"Students must wear the uniform; it is compulsory." — "must" expresses strong obligation or a rule imposed by authority. "Should" only gives advice or a recommendation, which is too weak when the sentence itself says it is compulsory.

"Neither the teacher nor the students were ready." — with "neither...nor" (also either...or, or, nor), the verb agrees with the nearer subject. The nearer subject here is "the students" (plural), so the verb must be plural: "were".

"The box of books is heavy." — the verb agrees with the real subject, "box" (singular), not with "books", which only sits inside the phrase "of books". A phrase between the subject and the verb never changes the number of the subject.

"Everyone has finished the work." — indefinite pronouns like everyone, somebody, nobody, each and every take a singular verb, even though they refer to many people. So "has", not "have".