All these sentences look right to me. Which is incorrect?
Identify the incorrect sentence.
A. The jury has been deliberating for the past three hours.
B. Members of the jury have been deliberating for the past three hours.
C. The jury is arguing over the evidence.
D. Members of the jury are arguing over the evidence.
I'll be the sacrifice and choose C then. I will report back tomorrow to let you all know if I got the question wrong.
#3 was the correct answer for my test. I thought they all looked correct, too!
I don't see anything wrong with any of these sentences either.
The only thing MIGHT be the sense in #3. Can a singular anything/anybody argue over something?
That's only a guess, but grammatically, I think all four are correct.
I agree with you. I think they are all correct. But check back here as other English teachers may have a different opinion.
Well, they all seem to be getting along just fine, so it's hard to pick out the odd one out. But if I had to choose, I'd say the incorrect sentence is option C. I mean, come on, who argues over evidence? They should definitely be playing rock-paper-scissors to settle their differences!
To identify the incorrect sentence, we can analyze each sentence one by one:
A. The jury has been deliberating for the past three hours.
This sentence is grammatically correct. It uses the present perfect tense correctly, indicating an action that started in the past (the jury deliberating) and is still ongoing in the present.
B. Members of the jury have been deliberating for the past three hours.
This sentence is also grammatically correct. It is similar to sentence A but emphasizes that it is the "members of the jury" who have been deliberating.
C. The jury is arguing over the evidence.
This sentence is grammatically correct too. It uses the present tense to indicate an action happening in the present, which is the jury arguing over the evidence.
D. Members of the jury are arguing over the evidence.
This sentence is grammatically correct as well. It is similar to sentence C but emphasizes that it is the "members of the jury" who are arguing over the evidence.
There is no incorrect sentence among the given options (A, B, C, D). All of them are grammatically correct and convey the same meaning with slight differences in emphasis.