Choose the verb that correctly completes the sentence.
The committee, as well as all the participants at the meeting, _______ the decision is fair.
A.
are believing
B.
believe
C.
believes
D.
believing
C. believes
To determine the correct verb to complete the sentence, we need to consider the subject of the sentence. The subject is "The committee, as well as all the participants at the meeting," which is a collective noun. Collective nouns are usually considered singular and take a singular verb.
In this case, the correct verb is "believes," so the answer is C. "The committee, as well as all the participants at the meeting, believes the decision is fair."
To arrive at this conclusion, we recognized that the subject is singular, and therefore, the verb should also be singular.