1a. Did you know a famous animal-rights activist has criticized horseracing because of the dangers involved?
1b. Did you know a famous animal-rights activist have criticized horseracing because of the dangers involved?
my answer is A. could you please explain it to me?
A is right - subject-verb agreement
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm
thank you
Certainly! The correct sentence is "Did you know a famous animal-rights activist has criticized horseracing because of the dangers involved?" Let's break it down:
1. Subject-Verb Agreement: In this sentence, the subject is "a famous animal-rights activist" which is a singular noun phrase. When using a singular noun phrase as the subject, we need to use the singular form of the verb "has criticized" to maintain subject-verb agreement.
2. Present Perfect Tense: The verb phrase "has criticized" uses the present perfect tense, which indicates an action that started in the past and continues to the present. In this case, it signifies that the animal-rights activist criticized horseracing in the past and their opinion is still relevant.
Remember that the structure "Subject + has/have + past participle" is used to form the present perfect tense.
So the correct form is "Did you know a famous animal-rights activist has criticized horseracing because of the dangers involved?"