ELPAC Practice

Which sentence has a verb that does not agree with its subject? (My Job at the Farmers Market)

Read a Student Essay · ELPAC Grades 3–5 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

An essay written as if by a classmate, with numbered sentences. The student finds the sentence containing the error.

Read the essay. Then answer the questions.

My Job at the Farmers Market

  1. Every Saturday my family sells oranges at the farmers market in our town.
  2. We wake up at five in the morning and load the truck while it is still dark.
  3. My sister and I builds the table out of two boxes and a long board.
  4. Then we stack the oranges into a tall pyramid so people can see them from far away.
  5. By seven o'clock the first customers arrive with their shopping bags.
  6. Last summer a woman bought twelve oranges and told me they were the sweetest she had ever tasted.
  7. I felt proud because I picked those oranges myself.
  8. Sometimes the market is slow and we sit in folding chairs and wait.
  9. We pack up the empty boxes and drive home before sun goes down.

The question

Choose the best answer.

Which sentence has a verb that does not agree with its subject?

  • Sentence 2: “We wake up at five in the morning and load the truck while it is still dark.”
  • Sentence 3: “My sister and I builds the table out of two boxes and a long board.”Correct answer
  • Sentence 5: “By seven o'clock the first customers arrive with their shopping bags.”
  • Sentence 8: “Sometimes the market is slow and we sit in folding chairs and wait.”

Why “Sentence 3: “My sister and I builds the table out of two boxes and a long board.”” is correct

This tests subject-verb agreement inside a longer piece of writing, where the error has to be found rather than pointed at. Sentence 3 has the compound subject 'My sister and I', which is plural and takes 'build', not 'builds'. Learners who have been drilled on adding -s to present-tense verbs often overapply the rule in exactly this way.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • Sentence 2: “We wake up at five in the morning and load the truck while it is still dark.” — Sentence 2 pairs the plural subject 'we' with 'wake' and 'load' correctly, though two verbs in one sentence can look like a mistake.
  • Sentence 5: “By seven o'clock the first customers arrive with their shopping bags.” — 'The first customers arrive' is correct plural agreement; a learner expecting -s on every present-tense verb may flag it wrongly.
  • Sentence 8: “Sometimes the market is slow and we sit in folding chairs and wait.” — Both 'the market is' and 'we sit and wait' agree with their subjects.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 3–5, or see the ELPAC practice test for grades 3–5. For other grades, see free ELPAC practice tests by grade.

This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the California Department of Education or the official ELPAC program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published task formats.