Taking The Ged

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Q. i'm going to be taking the GED test towards the end of this month. I'll probably be coming here to ask questions every once in a while. I have a few questions. I was reading a sentence today that someone posted in another group and I was confused. Here's the sentence: There (is, are) a lot of things about the game that scare me. Would the correct word to use in that sentence be "There is" or would it be correct with "There are"? The reason why i'm confused is because i'm assuming the subject is the word "lot". I assume the subject is the word "lot" because my GED book says that subjects are sometimes interrupted by prepositional phrases such as "of, in, for, to, from, with, on". Look at this sentence: The bushel of peaches (has, have) been sold. The word "bushel" is the subject. Peaches is not the subject because it is the interrupting phrase which is set up by the word "of". The bushel of peaches HAS been sold is correct because "bushel" is singular and "has" agrees with it. If you cross out the words "of peaches" and wrote the sentence like this, "The bushel has been sold" clearly this way makes sense. "The bushel have been sold" clearly doesn't make sense. In the first sentence I mentioned, there is the word "of": There (is, are) a lot of things about the game that scare me. Is the word "of" an interrupting phrase in this sentence which makes the word "lot" the subject? The verb "is" would agree if the subject is "lot". However, if the subject is the word "things", then "There are a lot of things about this game that scare me" would be correct because "There are things" agrees with each other. "Are" is plural which refers to a plural subject "things". "Is" is singular which refers to a singular subject "lot". The book says that when a subject is plural, you can never have a verb which ends with an s (therefore no "is" for "things"). The confusion here is because the book says "of" is an interrupting phrase. These are my questions: 1- Is "lot" the subject? 2- Is "things" the subject? 3- Is the word "of" an interrupting phrase in that sentence? 3- What kind of word is lot? Noun? adjective? 4- Can an adjective be the subject of a verb? 5- Can something other than a noun or pronoun be the subject of the sentence? 6- Which is correct, "There are, or There is"? I also have a side question. If you notice, sometimes I wrote: In the sentence, "There (are, is) a lot of..." Do you always have to capitalize the first word in a quote when you quote something? For example look at this: Mary baked a cake, and she thought, "Wow, what a great cake" while she said "Very nice cake". Is "Wow" capitalized? Is "Very capitalized? Is there anyone who is an English teacher that visits this group?

A. You'll do fine on the GED. That test is essentially only at 6th or 7th grade level competency anyway. You seem to have far in excess of the minimum intelligence/education needed to pass. As to "a lot": It's a two-word adjective or adverb, depending upon the context. The same holds whether to use the singular or the plural. The context governs. So you will have to consider it in context. See below: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/muchfew.html#alot A lot The words a lot must be written as two words. The phrase has the same meaning as both many and much and can be interchanged with either one. A lot is followed by of when the meaning is general or by of the when the meaning is specific: Example Meaning People A lot of people have done research on discrimination practices among employers. General meaning A lot of the people at the meeting disagree with the market strategy presented. Specific meaning Money A lot of money is spent on the battle against AIDS. General meaning The committee used a lot of the money surveying the population. Specific meaning Sometimes, a lot can also end a sentence, but it is considered an informal expression: We laughed a lot. The budget for the universities in the state of Minnesota has grown a lot.

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