a lot of homework was or were

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• French and English Grammar / Grammaire française et anglaise

EN: there was/were a lot of

• Thread starter blood_onyx
• Start date Aug 10, 2008
• Aug 10, 2008

Senior Member

My vote goes to there were a lot ...  

La Saboteuse

I agree, it has to be "were" because "people" is plural. "A lot" can go either way, though; you can use "was" if the noun is collective, or otherwise singular. "There was a lot of emotion in his performance."  

"There were a lot of people" is the only option that is considered formally correct - of course, in speaking we might say "There was..." (we do this regardless of the "a lot", but more frequently in the present : "There's two books on the table") - but this is not considered "correct".  

• Aug 11, 2008

When to use ‘was’ versus ‘were’

There are several reasons why you might be struggling to decide whether you should be using “was” or “were” in a sentence. The simplest of these is the conjugation of the singular and plural forms of the past tense of “to be.” While this can cause minor problems to those learning English as a second language as they study, first language English speakers usually have few problems with this. The most common cause of debate and confusion is the use of “were” instead of “was” in the subjunctive mood (We’ll explain that below if you aren’t sure what subjunctive mood is.). We’ll cover both past and subjunctive mood topics in this article, and you’ll soon see just how simple it all is.

Singular and Plural

As we’ve observed, this is the easiest of the choices you need to make, but it also gives rise to the problems that so many people have when they begin to use the subjunctive mood.

Singular: I was, he was, she was, it was – BUT you were. (Just to make things more fun!)

Plural: It’s always ‘were’, regardless of whether we’re talking about “they,” “we” or “you.” So far, so easy! But now we’ll examine how this relates to one of the most common errors in spoken or written English: the choice of “was” instead of “were” in the subjunctive mood.

If I were / was a rich man – the famous subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is used to describe or speculate on a hypothetical situation, and you’ll hear people using both ‘”was” and “were” in this context. But only one of these is correct. Whenever we’re talking about something that isn’t a reality at the moment, we discard “was” and choose “were” instead. It doesn’t matter whether we are referring to a single person or a group of people. As soon as we cross the border between reality and speculation, “were” is the only word to choose. For example

• I was rich and I owned a house at the seaside.
• If I were rich, I would have owned a house at the seaside.
• He was the captain of the team and he chose a different strategy.
• If he were captain of the team, he would have chosen a different strategy.

In each of the pairs of sentences above, the first one refers to something that actually happened in the past, and the word “was” is the correct choice. The second sentence is a wish or a speculation – it refers to an event that did not actually happen, and “were” is the correct choice.

• They were the winning team, so they celebrated their victory.
• If they were the winning team, they would celebrate their victory.

As we can see, the subjunctive mood doesn’t result in any change in word choice in this example. No matter how many people you are referring to, the subjunctive mood calls for the word “were.” If you’ve been prone to saying the incorrect “I wish I was,” “If he was” or “I wish she was” instead of the correct ‘I wish I were,” “If he were” or “I wish she were,” it will be easy to make the necessary adaptation and correct your grammar.

Look out for the subjunctive mood. As soon as something is a wish or a hypothetical (if) situation, you will always choose “were” over “was.”

It’s a common grammar mistake. In spoken as well as written English, you’ll find that just about everyone from plumbers to presidents is guilty of this mistake. Of course, when presidents make this error, those who know better will laugh at them, so if you’re hoping that what you say will be taken seriously, it’s worth learning when to use “were” instead of “was.” After all, once you understand the basic rules, it’s quite easy.

I understand it, but it still sounds wrong to me to use “were” with I and he and she.

“If she was home, I’d go and play” sounds much better than “If she were home, I’d go play with her, but the latter is supposedly correct.

This sure helps a lot to understand the difference even though it still sounds a bit wrong when saying it out loud. At least now I know how to use it correctly. At least I think I do enough to finally get some sleep…

It is easy for me to understand why this would be confusing to a large number of people. I really don’t know the rules well, so I always play it by ear. If it sounds correct, then I’m usually right. I couldn’t decide whether to use “was” or “were” and that’s how I ended up at this article. It can get a bit confusing, but I understand the correct way to use both now. Thank you.

Glad to hear the article could help you understand a bit better. That’s exactly what I hoped it would do. Good luck with all your writing!

Thank you for this simple explanation between the difference of was and were. This was exactly what I was searching for when I type my question into the search engine. I think I have a better understanding of when to use the word “was” and when to use the word “were” now that I’ve read this.

I’m happy to the article was able to help you understand the difference a bit better. Hopefully you can use the two words correctly in the future and it will soon become habit knowing which to use.

Does it really matter? If a person understands what you mean to say, who cares if you use was or were? People are far too uptight about grammar and shouldn’t care as long as everyone understands. This is a big overreaction to make something more complicated than it should be — the only people who care are teachers so they can keep their jobs.

It does matter, In fact, it matters a lot. I can write, “I enjy brekfast evryday” which you can probably figure out what I mean to say, but it looks terrible. There really is no difference when using “was” and “were” incorrectly. You really should care about grammar for exactly this reason.

This seems like a lazy excuse not to use proper grammar or not wanting to study for an English test. The truth is, you will be judged by how you speak and write. Knowing the correct way to use verbs like was and were is important for this reason.

I can’t believe someone actually said that.

I was going to go out tonight to have a lot of fun. If I were to go out tonight, I think I would have a lot of fun.

I don’t understand why in these two sentences I use “was” for one of them and “were” for the other when they are both basically saying the exact same thing. Can someone explain this to me so it makes sense?

Those two sentences have completely different meanings and are dramatically different from one another. You can’t really compare the two. Do you understand which one of the following two is correct?

If I were to go out tonight, I think I would have a lot of fun. If I was to go out tonight, I think I would have a lot of fun.

That would be a better comparison of whether or not you understand the difference of when to use “was” or “were”

This is a great way to explain the two words. was and were are difficult. So many get it wrong I know because I am one of them. This helped a lot thank you for the post and also for the great explanation.

You can seriously find an article on anything on the Internet. I mean, who would ever search for something like this? I’m scared just thinking about how I ended up here to read this…

English is a confusing language. If you grew up speaking English you probably wouldn’t understand this, but trying to learn it as a second language is difficult.

I think if you read through the comments, you will see a lot of different people have questions about which of these two to use.

I understand the whole first person etc.., but when it comes to objects, what are the rules. For example: The man said the set of tires were returned. or is it, The man said the set of tires was returned. Is it was because it’s a set or is it were because they’re tires?

It would be:

The man said the set of tires was returned. or The man said the tires were returned.

A set is singular so “was” is appropriate.

Is it safe to say that if the sentence starts with “If I…” then it will always be “were” that comes next and not “was”? I’m just trying to make sure that I understand the difference between these two words correctly so I don’t make any mistakes.

If you are speculating, which you are in a “what if…” sentence, then you use “were” and not “was” Was is used for the past tense. So, yes, you would be correct to use “were” when speculating with “if I…”

Not necessarily. If the “If I…” is because you don’t know the answer, then it’s “was”. As in “If I was late, I’m sorry.” But I don’t actually know that I was late. Use “were” when the “If I …” sentence could correctly followed up with “but I wasn’t”. “If I were late, I’d be sorry.” But I wasn’t.

Timing and transportation was everything… or Timing and transportation were everything… Editor says was and the writer says ‘were.’ Please help!

This s the sentence in its entirety I think it’s ‘were’ please let me know. Thanks- Judy Doing these mandatory chores affected whether or not I would be on time for school; timing and transportation was everything.

I would say “was” because the “timing and transportation” where you are thinking the plural comes from is actually a singular issue of being on time for school.

I’m very unsatisfied with some practical, basic functional conflicts and ambiguity of English, likely the only language I will ever know. I dream we could do dramatically better if we ‘started over’ Idk. In this case maybe something to do with clear singular or plural state of last subject in the series?? I can only guess that. Cake and cookies were everywhere. Cookies and cake was everywhere. ?? Cookies, cake, and pretzels were everywhere. Cookies, pretzel, and cake was everywhere. ?? And BTW I hate that its: You were there. He was there. stuff that! Also HATE that it’s ”Someone was shooting at me, THEY WERE crazy…. And the even more objectionable…. What is wrong with that person? THEY don’t have THEIR priorities strait. Talk about your schizophrenic pronouns.

A psychological report on the impact of the incident and its consequences on his life was/were requested?

“was”

The psychological report is singular.

The time and day weren’t obvious or the time and day wasn’t obvious. Which one is correct?

This depends on how you are reading it. If you are assuming “time and day” as a singular event, then it is wasn’t, but if you are assuming time and day as separate pieces of information being given, then it’s weren’t. It depends on the context of the sentence.

boom! i cant think of a better way to explain what this article just explained! wonderful!

such a great review I found it clear and concise

Why does this all have to be so confusing and hard? Why can’t English be easy like other languages?

I would disagree that other languages are easy. There are some other languages that are much more difficult than English. That’s not to say that English isn’t difficult and there are points which are confusing such as the difference of was and were in certain situations, but other languages can have situations that are even more difficult and confusing. It comes with every language. There are always going to be some aspects of it that will be confusing and will take time to learn.

English, unlike most other languages, is derived from great number of languages – Latin, Greek, French, German, Scandinavian languages, Celtic languages.

It is that mish-mash that has led to entirely different rules grammar than other languages have and to the wonderfully multiple spellings and meanings for words that sound the same such as “to,” “too,” and “two”; “lead” (two meanings) and “led”; and that wonderful catch all word of “fuck” which can be used as a verb, noun, adverb, adjective and God knows what and has so many different meanings, one wonders why it is even considered a “curse” word.

Wonderful advice.

I saw this article on were vs we’re which was interesting which seems to be similar to this one.

Thank you for this, I have been marked down for not proof reading my work emails due to this silly error.

This makes more sense to me now as I have not needed to use the two words for years since school

It was great knowing the differences between these two giants word.

but, those grandchildren was or were his pride and joy. The granddaddy has passed away, so which is correct, was or were?

The word were, because the sentence those grandchildren is plural not singular!

“everyone from plumbers to presidents is guilty of this mistake” shouldn’t that be “are” guilty?

Subject “everyone” is singular so helping verb “is” is used and not “are”.

Well said Bob, “everyone” might be singular, but “plumbers and presidents” are not. To use “is” in this sentence is just so wrong!

Jim, “plumbers and presidents” are within a prepositional phrase and are the objects of the preposition “from”. Everyone is the singular subject of the sentence. Therefore, it must be “is”.

Your explanation between the words was and were, it’s clear, now I know that I will be more conscience when to use it a properly.thank you!

I know it’s an old post but the problem seems to always be fresh… In the sentence: “A selection of panels was checked.” – is the verb used correctly. Was or were? I keep writing “was”, as selection is singular but it keeps being corrected to “were” as it relates to panels – plural. Which version is correct, please?

“A selection of panels was checked” is correct. Like you said, selection is singular, and since that is the subject of the sentence, that is what needs to match up with the verb. “Of panels” is just a prepositional phrase, but since panels is a noun and it’s right before the verb it can sometimes throw people (and computers!) off.

“Apparently sunshine, outdoor activities and simple home-cooked meals was a good change for his son.”

The above sentence looks so wrong to me, but I can’t find an answer on if it’s right or wrong.

What if we were referring to an item or any not living object? i.e. “Her lips (was/were) trembling.”

Sentence is in present tense and is not conditional, plus ‘lips’ is plural – hence ‘were’. But ‘If here lips . . .’ requires the word ‘were’, on account of the ‘if’: it’s a conditional statement.

Sometimes I think that the usage of these two words needs to be redefined. Simply use ‘was’ for singular and ‘were’ for plural.

So how about this question asking about a fact and not a hypothetical item? Which is correct? If there was/were a way to train harder and recover faster … would you want to know about it?

If we are talking about a collection of singular nouns should you use was or were? For instance The car, lorry and bus was causing congestion in the road v The car, lorry and bus were causing congestion in the road I am thinking ‘were’ is correct because I am saying They caused congestion…….

It would be were. I’m not an expert, but if you are talking about several objects or people (the car, lorry, and bus in your example), you should use were.

The strength and courage you showed was/were admirable. Which is right? Thanks.

it’s very good explanation thank you

Ho I write Mia and Marco was open for discussion or were open for discussion

Nice very helpful ☺️💖

Time and volume were considered as the sub-plots or Time and volume was considered as the sub-plots, which is correct? and why ?

What is correct my bosses’ were here or my bosses’ was here

My sisters were in the room. Plural ‘sisters’. Singular ‘brother’ was in the room. You seem quite right to question how the ‘were’ (speculation) ‘was’ (reality) rules apply in your bosses’ instance.

Were there actions necessary? Were their actions necessary? Was there actions necessary? Was their actions necessary?

Were there actions necessary? Correct? Thank you for your help with this.

That is so clear an explanation. If I were (speculation) foreign I would easily reason the difference than if I was (reality) native English. Makes sense, were (speculation) it not that I was (reality) testing irony.

That was great… now can you explain: to, too & two; there, they’re & their; & the ultimate misnomer your & you’re?

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Was vs. Were: What’s the Difference?

Home » Was vs. Were: What’s the Difference?

Was and were are both past tenses of the verb to be . The verb be is a tricky one because it is an irregular verb and one that we find ourselves using with great frequency, so it is that much more important that we choose the correct verb for our sentences.

In this post, I want to go over the grammar behind was vs. were, when it’s correct to use which one, and give you a few tips to keep track of them both. After reading this post, you shouldn’t have any trouble correctly choosing between was or were in your future writing.

Forms of Was and Were

Was is used in the first person singular (I) and the third person singular (he, she, it).

Were is used in the second person singular and plural (you, your, yours) and first and third person plural (we, they).

The forms that was and were will take in your sentence are summarized in the chart below,

Singular = I was, You were, He was, She was, It was

Plural = We were, You were, They were

• I was driving to the park.
• You were drinking some water.
• He was about to eat dinner.
• She was at the roller rink.
• It was a great time.
• We were in the right spot.
• They were nowhere to be seen.

If I was vs. If I were

While some people get mixed up on what we’ve covered above, most of the confusion with these two words centers on the use of the subjunctive mood and specifically the two phrases if I was vs. if I were . For example, which of the following two choices is correct?

• If I was a better cook, I could entertain more.
• If I were a better cook, I could entertain more.

You hear people say both each and every day, so it’s hard to know which is correct. The answer, however, has to do with the subjunctive mood.

Subjunctive Mood

• I wish I weren’t so shy.
• I wish it were warmer outside.
• If I were taller, I could dunk a basketball.
• If John were a rich man, he could drive a fancy car.
• He acts as if he were the one in charge.
• John spends money as if he were a millionaire.

All of the above sentences use the verb were because they aren’t true; they do not describe reality.

In the first two sentences, I am talking about things I wish would happen.

In the third and fourth sentences, I am talking about situations that would happen if I were taller and if John were rich, speaking hypothetically.

And the fifth and sixth sentences are examples of unreal statements.

When to Use Were

Another good example of the subjunctive mood can be found in the musical Fiddler on the Roof . In the song, “If I were a rich man,” the character Tevye sings about how different his life would be and all the things he would do if he were rich.

If I were a rich man, I’d build a big tall house…

If I were a rich man, I’d have the time that I lack.

If I were a wealthy man, I wouldn’t have to work hard.

In these lines, Tevye is fantasizing about life as a wealthy man. He isn’t rich now; he’s just imagining it, so we need to use the subjective “If I were,” not “If I was.”

The correct answer for the example above, therefore, is, “If I were a better cook, I could entertain more.”

Tricks to Remember

Two good clues for the subjunctive mood are the words if and wish . If you see either of these words, there is a good chance you will need to use the subjunctive.

When to Use Was

Since were is used for statements that do not describe reality, was is just the opposite. Was is used for statements of fact. For example,

• Last night, I was watching TV until midnight.
• When I was younger, I wanted to be a singer.
• Your brother was my college roommate.

These words are used differently in sentences, so it’s important to know when to use were vs. was.

Was is used in the first and third person singular past. It is used for statements of fact.

Were is used in the second person singular and plural and first and third person plural. It is used in the subjunctive mood to indicate unreal or hypothetical statements. The words if and wish usually indicate the subjunctive mood.

< Where versus Were versus Wear

Was versus Were >

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I have a lot of homework or I have a lot of homeworks?

TextRanch: The best way to perfect your writing.

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• I have a lot of homework

This phrase is correct. 'Homework' is an uncountable noun and does not have a plural form.

• I have a lot of homework to do tonight.
• She spends hours doing her homework every day.

I have a lot of homeworks

This phrase is incorrect. 'Homework' is an uncountable noun and does not have a plural form.

Alternatives:

Explained by Miss E. Editor at TextRanch

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Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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The Surprising History of Homework Reform

Really, kids, there was a time when lots of grownups thought homework was bad for you.

Homework causes a lot of fights. Between parents and kids, sure. But also, as education scholar Brian Gill and historian Steven Schlossman write, among U.S. educators. For more than a century, they’ve been debating how, and whether, kids should do schoolwork at home .

At the dawn of the twentieth century, homework meant memorizing lists of facts which could then be recited to the teacher the next day. The rising progressive education movement despised that approach. These educators advocated classrooms free from recitation. Instead, they wanted students to learn by doing. To most, homework had no place in this sort of system.

Through the middle of the century, Gill and Schlossman write, this seemed like common sense to most progressives. And they got their way in many schools—at least at the elementary level. Many districts abolished homework for K–6 classes, and almost all of them eliminated it for students below fourth grade.

By the 1950s, many educators roundly condemned drills, like practicing spelling words and arithmetic problems. In 1963, Helen Heffernan, chief of California’s Bureau of Elementary Education, definitively stated that “No teacher aware of recent theories could advocate such meaningless homework assignments as pages of repetitive computation in arithmetic. Such an assignment not only kills time but kills the child’s creative urge to intellectual activity.”

But, the authors note, not all reformers wanted to eliminate homework entirely. Some educators reconfigured the concept, suggesting supplemental reading or having students do projects based in their own interests. One teacher proposed “homework” consisting of after-school “field trips to the woods, factories, museums, libraries, art galleries.” In 1937, Carleton Washburne, an influential educator who was the superintendent of the Winnetka, Illinois, schools, proposed a homework regimen of “cooking and sewing…meal planning…budgeting, home repairs, interior decorating, and family relationships.”

Another reformer explained that “at first homework had as its purpose one thing—to prepare the next day’s lessons. Its purpose now is to prepare the children for fuller living through a new type of creative and recreational homework.”

That idea didn’t necessarily appeal to all educators. But moderation in the use of traditional homework became the norm.

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“Virtually all commentators on homework in the postwar years would have agreed with the sentiment expressed in the NEA Journal in 1952 that ‘it would be absurd to demand homework in the first grade or to denounce it as useless in the eighth grade and in high school,’” Gill and Schlossman write.

That remained more or less true until 1983, when publication of the landmark government report A Nation at Risk helped jump-start a conservative “back to basics” agenda, including an emphasis on drill-style homework. In the decades since, continuing “reforms” like high-stakes testing, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the Common Core standards have kept pressure on schools. Which is why twenty-first-century first graders get spelling words and pages of arithmetic.

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A Word, Please: ‘Was’ or ‘were’? Here’s the key to the answer

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“If there were a Form 3, you would have already filled it out.” Reader Jessica had a question about a sentence like this.

The speaker already knew about a Form 1 and a Form 2. The existence of Form 3, however, was hypothetical. So, Jessica wanted to know, is that “were” correct? Or should it be “was”?

There’s a one-word key to finding the answer: subjunctive. That’s the term for the grammar dynamic that determines whether “was” or “were” is best here.

Armed with that one little word, you can research the issue and arrive at an answer. But Jessica already knew that. She Googled “subjunctive” and still couldn’t figure out what it meant for her sentence.

“I haven’t been able to find any examples on the internet about ‘if there were ...’ Only examples of “If he/she/it were ...”

In other words, “there” is complicating the question of whether the verb should be “was” or “were.” But does the “there” really affect the verb?

In this case, no. But it’s good to understand both dynamics, the subjunctive and something called “existential there,” to work all this out.

The subjunctive mood refers to sentences that express wishes, suppositions, statements of necessity, demands and other “contrary to fact” statements.

“If he were taller” is an example of a contrary-to-fact subjunctive. He’s not taller. He’s as tall as he is. So this is subjunctive.

Compare that to “If he was being honest, you’ll get all your money back.” In this case it’s possible he was being honest. Time will tell. So it’s called “indicative,” which for our purposes just means “not subjunctive.”

The difference is reflected in the verb. In the past tense, the subjunctive applies only to the verb “be,” and it’s formed by replacing “was” with “were.” “If he were being honest” (which means he wasn’t) versus “If he was being honest” (which means it’s possible).

In the present tense, the subjunctive applies to all verbs, and you form it by replacing the conjugated verb with the “base form” of the verb.

Compare “Zach locks up the office at night” with “It’s crucial that Zach lock up the office at night.” “Locks” is the conjugated form. “Lock” is the base form.”

And by putting “it’s crucial” at the head of our sentence, we’re creating a statement of necessity that triggers the subjunctive mood.

Using the subjunctive, by the way, is usually optional. There’s no rule that says you have to use it. The term is just a way of understanding why we are sometimes inclined to say “if I were” instead of “if I was.”

So, going back to Jessica’s original question: Does having “there” as a subject have any effect on the subjunctive? The “there” in that sentence is a little confusing because “existential there” has a way of turning a sentence on its head.

Compare “A man was spying on you” to “There was a man spying on you.”

In the first, we have a simple subject-verb relationship in which the doer of the action, the man, is the subject of the verb, “spying.”

But in the second, the grammatical subject of the sentence is “there.” It’s the subject of the verb “was.” The doer of the action hasn’t changed. It’s still the man. But the grammatical subject has. It’s now “there.”

Using existential there is easy if you don’t think about it. Native speakers understand you have a choice of “a man was spying” or “there was a man spying.” Whichever better captures your emphasis and works with the meter of your sentence is fine.

Existential there has no special rules when it comes to the subjunctive. Just as “he was” becomes “he were” in the subjunctive, “there was” becomes “there were.”

So the answer to Jessica’s question is that “were” is the correct choice. Form 3’s existence is purely hypothetical, so the subjunctive would be “If there were a Form 3.”

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June Casagrande is a grammar columnist and the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at [email protected] .

There Were or There Was: Differences in Context and Use

By: Author Kallen Anluan

Posted on Published: August 15, 2020

The English language is riddled with rules and exceptions to those rules, but the use of “there was” and “there were” is relatively straightforward and consistent. As long as you have grasped the basics for the verb “to be,” and you understand plurals, you’ll be able to use these phrases correctly.

Both there were and there was are used in the past tense and follow the same rules that there is and there are follow in the present tense. Each are mostly used to introduce a description – there was describes a singular object in the past tense, and there were describes plural objects in the past tense.

In this article, we’re going to explore the various uses of “there was” and “there were” when used in positive and negative statements, as well as when used as a question or in answering a question. We’ll also look at alternatives to using this construction.

“There Was” vs. “There Were”

When deciding whether to use “was” or “were,” you need to know whether the thing you are describing is singular or plural. Here are a couple of examples for each of these phrases so you can get a sense of the difference:

Let’s quickly recap what a plural is so that we know when to use “were” instead of “was.”

Simply put, a plural noun is a word that refers to more than one thing — person, place, animal, idea, etc. As soon as you speak about more than one of anything, then it is plural. There are many rules around using plurals , but, for our purposes, we’re just going to look at noun plurals.

Most plurals are simply the singular noun with an “s” added. “Dog” becomes “dogs,” “leg” becomes “legs,” and so on. 

However, English has many exceptions. Some plurals have “es” added afterward, and others have irregular plural forms, which you just have to learn. Some examples of the most common irregular plurals follow below:

If describing a singular object, you would use “there was,” and if describing plural objects, you would use “there were.” It’s essential to know whether the object is singular or plural because the verb and subject must agree.

For example, you will say, “ There was one person at the party” because you are referring to a singular person. You will say, “ There were three people at the party” when referring to more than one person.

The Verb “To Be”

This is a very common verb, and sometimes one of the most confusing too! It’s most commonly used to link one verb to another, such as “He was playing soccer,” but sometimes stands on its own, as is the case when it’s used in the “there was” or “there were” construction.

If you would say “there is” or “there are” in the present tense, then you would use “there was” and “there were” in the past tense. Below are some examples of sentences in both the present and the past tense:

Positive Statements

A positive statement in English gives you a piece of information describing how something is. By definition, it is an objective and fact-based statement. Positive or affirmative statements using “there was” or “there were” follow the formula below:

• There + verb + complement — the rest of the sentence that completes the idea.

For example, here are two positive statements:

Negative Statements

Negative statements are the opposite of positive statements. They’re still objective and fact-based, but they tell you something is not so. They either contain a negative word — not, no, no one, nobody, never, none — or a negative verb.

Negative statements using “there was” or “there were” follow the same formula as positive statements, but the verb needs to be conjugated in the negative ( source ):

• There + negative verb + complement

For example, here are two negative statements:

Contractions, or joining together two words, are commonly used throughout the English language. Here, they’re used with negative verbs where the verb and “not” are joined together.

In this case, “was not” becomes “wasn’t” and “were not” becomes “weren’t.” 

Using contractions, these sentences would look like this:

Contractions are common in everyday speech and informal writing ( source ). In fact, it would be strange to hear someone speaking without using contractions.

However, some academic papers and formal documents don’t use contractions, so it’s often best to check if they are acceptable in formal environments.

To formulate questions using “there was” and “there were,” you can follow the following formula:

• Verb + there + complement?

For example, here are the previous sentences made into questions:

Answering Questions

“There was” and “there were” are often used to answer questions that begin with “how much?” or “how many?” Below are some examples of questions with answers that highlight this.

• Question: How many dogs were in the park?
• Answer: There were ten dogs in the park — plural.
• Answer: There was one dog in the park — singular.
• Question: How much milk was in the refrigerator?
• Answer: There was a pint of milk in the refrigerator — singular.
• Answer: There were five bottles of milk in the refrigerator — plural.

The phrase is also used to answer questions, either positively or negatively, that begin with “was there” or “were there,” as in the examples below.

• Question: Was there any pizza at the party?
• Answer: Yes, there was pizza at the party.
• Answer: No, there wasn’t pizza at the party.
• Question: Were there any children in the classroom?
• Answer: Yes, there were five children in the classroom.
• Answer: No, there weren’t any children in the classroom.

Question Tags

Question tags are often added onto a statement, turning it into a question. If it is a positive statement, then a negative question tag is added, and if it is a negative statement, then a positive tag is added ( source ). Examples of both follow below.

• There were ten dogs in the park, weren’t there ?
• There weren’t any dogs in the park, were there ?
• There was food at the party, wasn’t there ?
• There wasn’t any food at the party, was there ?

This is most often used in spoken English, and much less in written English. And usually, question tags are added when the speaker expects you to agree with their statement. 

Expletive Constructions

Any sentence that begins with “There is/was/are/were” or “It is/was” is an expletive construction. When using this kind of construction, “it” or “there” is used instead of the subject of the sentence. 

Although it is a handy and much-used construction, many word experts warn against overusing it as it can make writing seem very bland and overly wordy. It’s usually best used when it immediately follows a sentence that clearly defines the subject ( source ). 

Below are some sentences that are written with and without expletive constructions. They clearly show how meaning can be more direct if this construction is avoided.

Helpful Resources

If in doubt during your study of the often-confusing English language, it’s always best to refer to reliable resources. The following two books are very helpful, and both are available on Amazon:

• The Oxford New Essential Dictionary
• Dreyer’s English Clarity and Style Guide

The dictionary is easy to use and has clear definitions and helpful examples. Dreyer’s English is a style guide that will answer any questions you may have on the English language’s nuances.

Final Thoughts

The difference between “there was” and “there were” is entirely dependent on whether the subject you are speaking about is singular or plural.

The same rules apply to both phrases, and they can be used in various constructions to make positive or negative statements as well as to ask or answer questions.

In English, as in most languages, the subject and verb must agree, and it is, therefore, most important to know if you are referring to something in singular or plural before deciding to use “there was” or “there were.”

Would Not or Will Not: Determining Appropriate Usage

Wednesday 19th of August 2020

[…] To learn more about the complexities of past and present tense, please read, “There Were or There Was: Differences in Context and Use.” […]

How to use did, was, were and does correctly?

Words such as "did", "was", "were", and "does" that frequently appear in learning English. Although it is a word learned in junior high school, many people use "did" in the past, and it seems that there are surprisingly many people who are uncertain about how to use it properly. So, this time, I would like to introduce how to use these four words properly, along with sentences that frequently appear in English conversation.

• Use Did and Was / Were properly

Use did and does properly

Different use of did and was / were.

Have you made the following mistakes while speaking in online English conversation?

"Did you go to school yesterday?" × Were you go to school yesterday?

The original correct text is below.

â—‹ Did you go to school yesterday? (Did you go to school yesterday?)

So why is "did" correct instead of "were"?

In the first place, the sentence "Did you go to school yesterday?" Is an interrogative form of the sentence "You went to school yesterday."

You went to school yesterday. (You went to school yesterday.)

This went is the past tense of the general verb "go". General verbs are verbs other than the be verb. When making a question sentence of a sentence containing such a past tense general verb, Did is added to the beginning of the sentence, and went remains changed to the original form "go".

You went to school yesterday. (You went to school yesterday.) ↓ Did you go to school yesterday. (You went to school yesterday.)

On the other hand, how about the following sentences?

"Did you in the school at that time?" × Did you in the school at that time?

Were you in the school at that time?

The sentence "Are you at school at that time?" Is a question of the sentence "You were at school at that time" in the first place.

You were in the school at that time.

In this sentence, the verb is not a general verb, but a be verb, which is the past tense of are. In the interrogative sentence of the sentence including the be verb, the be verb moves to the beginning of the sentence as it is.

You were in the school at that time. (At that time, you were at school.) ↓ Were you in the school at that time. (At that time, you were at school.)

Of course, the past tense of the be verb is not only were, but also was. For example,

He was in the school at that time. (He was in the school at that time.)

In the question sentence of the sentence, the be verb was moved to the beginning of the sentence,

He was in the school at that time. (He was in the school at that time?) ↓ Was he in the school at that time?

It will be.

<Summary> 1. In past interrogative sentences of general verbs, Did is used at the beginning of the sentence. In past interrogative sentences of the be verb, Were or Was is used at the beginning of the sentence.

Did, Was / Were example sentences

Based on the previous explanation, let's look at some of the example sentences that can be used in online English conversation.

Patterns that use Did

You liked the ice cream. (You liked the ice cream.) ↓ Did you like the ice cream? (Did you like the ice cream?)

You bought new shoes. (You bought new shoes.) ↓ Did you buy new shoes? (Did you buy new shoes?)

You wrote a letter to your mom. ↓ Did you write a letter to your mom? (Did you write a letter to your mom?)

Patterns that use Were

You were sick last week. (You were sick last week.) ↓ Were you sick last week? (Did you get sick last week?)

You were sad when you saw it. (You were sad when you saw it.) ↓ Were you sad when you saw it?

They were there last summer. (They were there last summer.) ↓ Were they there last summer? (Did they stay there last summer?)

Pattern using Was

He was at home yesterday. (He was at home yesterday.) ↓ Was he at home yesterday? (Did he stay at home yesterday?)

She was with Tom last Friday. (She was with Tom last Friday.) ↓ Was she with Tom last Friday? (She was with Tom this Friday?)

I was wrong. (I was wrong.) ↓ Was I wrong? (I was wrong?)

Next, let's look at the difference between did and does. When speaking in English, I often hear that the place where does should be used is did, and vice versa.

First of all, there are two main situations where you often see did and does.

The first is when the general verb "do" changes, "do" and "do", and the other is when it is used as an "auxiliary verb" in the head of an interrogative sentence. Let's explain these two patterns separately.

Variations of the general verb "do" "did" "does"

First of all, "did", but suppose you have the following sentence.

I do homework. (I do my homework)

You do the washing.

They do the dishes.

In the example sentence above, "do" acts as the verb "do". "Did" appears when the general verb "to" is transformed into the past tense of "to".

I did homework. (I did my homework.)

You did the washing.

They did the dishes.

On the other hand, "does" is the present tense, and when the subject is a pronoun such as "he", "she", or "it" or a proper noun, the third person of do (third person, singular, present tense). "Does" is used.

She does homework.

He does the washing.

Tom does the dishes.

<Summary> 1. In the past tense of the general verb "do", "did" is used. If the subject is the third person singular and present tense, "do" changes to "does"

"Did" and "does" used at the beginning of an interrogative sentence

"Did" and "does" also appear at the beginning of an interrogative sentence. At this time, "did" and "does" are not verbs, but auxiliary verbs, and work to indicate that they are interrogative sentences.

First of all, "did" is used for "past" interrogative sentences as shown below.

Did you go to school yesterday? (Did you go to school yesterday?)

Did he talk to you last Friday? (Did he talk to you last Tuesday?)

Did she like your present?

The fact that "Did" is in your head tells you that it is a past question.

On the other hand, "does" is used when the subject is the current interrogative and the subject is the third person singular such as "she", "he", "it".

Does he usually go to school by bus?

Does she enjoy her job?

Does Emily often cook?

As mentioned above, in the current interrogative form, "Does" is used if the subject is the third person singular. This doesn't come out at first, and you might just say "Do she" or "Do he". Let's memorize the part drawn in red as a set by saying "Does he" and "Does she" many times.

<Summary> 1. "Did" is used at the beginning of past tense interrogative sentences . "Does" is a present tense interrogative, used when the subject is the third person singular

"Did," "was," "were," "does," etc. are words that are often used in English conversation. I think there are many people who say the wrong word in the sentence. By speaking the correct example sentence introduced this time aloud many times, you will feel a sense of discomfort when "did" becomes "was". Once you understand the difference, please try to speak a lot.

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Eriberto Do Nascimento

Eriberto Do Nascimento has Ph.D. in Speech Intelligibility and Artificial Intelligence and is the founder of English Phonetics Academy.

“There is a lot of” vs “There are a lot of”

by Phil Williams | Jun 14, 2018 | Definitions , Grammar | 50 comments

Do we say “There is a lot…” or “There are a lot of…” ?

This question was put to me recently by a student who noted that “lot” is the first noun after a verb. In theory, the verb should be singular with “a lot of”, because it is a singular “lot”.

Comparing “There are a lot of apples.” and “There is a lot of apples.”, to many people this sounds incorrect, however. Why?

When should “to be” agree with the first noun?

With a sentence covering states, the noun typically agrees with the first noun, such as There is a car. or They are rocks. The verb “to be” describes the noun, and therefore agrees with whether the noun is singular or plural. This can become confusing, however, when “to be” describes a singular noun that groups a plural: nouns such as couple, pair, group, and crowd may all be followed by plurals, but are treated, grammatically, as singular, as they represent one single unit. Consider that “a couple of people” is one object (a couple), because it combines two separate objects (two people) into one unit. Similarly, “a group of doctors”, “a crowd of onlookers”, “a swarm of bees”. The opposite would be true if we defined a group by a plural number or an adverb expressing a plural: “many chairs” and “twelve nurses”, for example, express plurals that are not grouped into one unit.

Usually, the first noun defines the quantity (and tells us “how many”), and with sentences describing states the verb “to be” will agree with the first noun.

• There is a group of librarians waiting for you.
• There are hundreds of clowns coming.

This can be true of “a lot”; if we strictly want to refer to lot as a singular grouping, then the singular “is a lot” is appropriate. It’s been mentioned in the comments below that this is the “correct” usage, but bear in mind  data shows roughly half of English speakers are likely to say “are a lot”, and this a pattern that appears in grammar books – so we must question how the language is actually used rather than how the basic rules say it  should be used.

Why doesn’t this work for “There are a lot of / There is a lot”?

The ambiguity here comes from “a lot of” appearing to be a noun phrase when it’s actually not used in the same way. When people say “are a lot”, this is used not as a grouping noun but like a quantifying adjective, like “many”. While a singular verb is appropriate with nouns that define the plural into a singular group, “a lot of” refers to a quantity rather than a grouped unit – modifying the noun as “many” would. So the verb agrees with the noun that “a lot of” qualifies, rather than “a lot”. We can therefore have either “are a lot of” or “is a lot of” depending on our interpretation of this sentence. Mostly, we will use “There are a lot of” with countable nouns, when we discuss plurals, and “There is a lot of” with uncountable nouns, but there is of course flexibility here – in many cases it may be down to the individual’s interpretation of the sentence.

• There are a lot of apples.
• There is a lot of meat.

It’s deceptive, but a good example of how exceptions to some of the simple rules of English can work – because words can be used for functions that are not what they immediately appear to be.

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50 Comments

Than you, Phil, for an excellent explanation.

You’re welcome, I’m glad it helps!

I think we should consider this:

“A lot of people think that money grows on trees.” vs. “A lot of people thinks that money grows on trees.”

Obviously it is ‘ a lot of people think ‘ as ‘ people ‘relates to several folk.

What a great thread! It answers questions that I’ve had on my mind for a while on this subject.

This is perfect, Phil. Thanks. ❤

You’re welcome, I’m glad it helped!

Thanks a lot

So is the sentence “Wow, that’s a lot!” incorrect? Should it be “Wow, those are a lot!”? (sounds wrong to me).

Hi Ray – good question, as it depends on the context of what ‘that’ refers to; ‘that’ would usually be referring to a singular group or uncountable idea, so the singular ‘is’ is appropriate. Most commonly, this would refer to a price or money:

• “That is a lot [of money].”

But this one can be especially deceptive, because it might appear to refer to a plural, and be grouped with a plural, when actually ‘that’ refers to a singular idea. Consider:

• “That is a lot of chickens.”

Without context, we should make the statement “There are a lot of chickens.” But within a context where “that” is not identifying the plural, but instead commenting on the number, then the number itself is treated as a singular idea/amount:

• “I own twenty chickens.”
• “That [number of chickens] is a lot.”

I hope this makes sense?

Thanks for this Phil- this is what I needed. Could you please let me know which sources you are using? We had a test at work and I lost a mark as I said that ‘there are a lot of girls’ is ok… i would be grateful for more evidence.

Hi Kasia, certainly – it’s not always shown as an example in dictionaries, but you can see the first example of the Oxford Living Dictionary has it as a plural here: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lot (There are a lot of actors…)

More definitive, perhaps, is the entry in Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage, section 333.2. Though he does not frame an example in exactly this form, he states: “It is the subject, and not the form lot/lots, that makes a following verb singular or plural. So when a lot of is used before a plural subject, the verb is plural; when lots of is used before a singular subject, the verb is singular.”

I should probably point out that ‘a lot of’ is technically used here as a pronoun but with this idiomatic use it’s useful to compare it to an adverb.

This is fantastic, Phil. Glad to see that Swan’s grammar is still widely used. I’ve just ordered the 4th edition and can’t wait to read it. Your blogs are fab.

finally I got the answer, alhamdulillaah. thanks a lot, Sir!

By far THE BEST explanation of “a lot of” I’ve come across! Thank you so much.

Thanks Peretz, I’m glad it helped!

Thanks a lot for the tips. However, there are a lot of mistakes we make and one of them is the difference between “be going to” and ‘will’. How could you help us see the differences and use? Thanks a lot for your time.

Hi Silvio, the differences between “to be going to” and “will” for the future can be quite subtle, and are not always set in stone. I’ve covered the main comparisons in the book The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide, but there are also numerous articles on this site which might help. The following two particularly look at the difference for predictions and planned/unplanned events: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/making-predictions-future-tense/ https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/use-future-simple-planned-unplanned-events/

Hi Phil. I currently live in Germany and am often asked questions on the nuances of English – I am learning a lot about my mother tongue. The internet is split on this question (and of course everyone has an opinion). But in this case I don’t feel you are correct, so I wanted to explain.

Lot, in this case, is singular, since it is “a lot” and not “several lots”. Therefore you would either say “there is a lot” or “there are lots”. To my mind, the word “lot” could be substituted with “box”.

To me, both “there is a lot of apples” and “there are a lot of apples” both sound fine. But of course you would only say “there IS a box of apples”. So the fact that we have “a” suggests singular rather than plural. I am sure you are correct, but I wanted to point out my feelings and thoughts on this anyway 🙂

Hi Dave, thank you I can totally see your point and certainly it does make grammatical sense. I suppose my explanation here is related more to why ‘are a lot of’ is acceptable, and I shouldn’t suggest ‘is a lot of’ is incorrect – certainly in the frame you give it makes perfect sense. It’s one of those areas that popular usage is certainly responsible for a degree of flexibility, rather than the grammar dictating us (perhaps worth noting that in either case I very much doubt many native speakers have a conscious, logical choice to use one form or the other!).

Thanks Phil. I find I am still learning English – there are so many intricacies 🙂

I am too! I think the learning never stops when it comes to language.

I’d rather use the rule of proximity. There are lots of… There’s a lot of… no manter what comes after that.

Hi Phil, My wife and I are in a disagreement on a tshirt we saw. It said; “Behind every good woman are a lot of chickens.”

Is it correct the way it is, or should it be “…is a lot…”? – OR – Are both ways correct?

Our two sides: 1. The verb “are” is modifying the plural noun “chickens” and it should be the plural form. 2. The phrase “. . . lot of chickens” is non-count singular group and is part of the noun subject. Since it follows “every” the verb form has to be the singular “is”.

I won’t tell you which side I’m on but I’m right; aren’t I?

Ha, to hedge my bets I would say that yes both could arguably be correct there, the reasons you’ve given are spot on. I would lean towards the singular for the single grouped instance though, personally, precisely for the reason you’ve given – we’re drawing attention to the grouped phenomenon behind each individual, rather than a general plural. But yes – it’s rather debatable! Phil

Hi Phil, Shouldn’t it rather be written like: “Behind every woman THERE are a lot of chickens” Otherwise, the sentence does not sound complete to me

Hi Olga, Good question – technically yes, “there” would make it more grammatically correct, but (particularly in informal English) the “there” can often be omitted and still be understood in these situations. Off the top of my head, I suppose it happens when we have an adverbial before the “there is/are” statement, so we have a location already presented which makes “there” feel redundant (the location = there). But technically yes, it may be clearer and more correct to keep the “there”. Perhaps worth exploring in a separate article! Phil

Would this rule also apply to the sentence “There are a large number of batches currently in the warehouse”?

Some people argue that “to be” here refers to “a number”, so it should be “There is a large number of batches currently in the warehouse.”

Hi Peter – that’s a tricky one as it could indeed be argued either way. I’d personally suggest that the number is more appropriately being described, in line with the ‘first noun’ examples, so I would go with the singular.

Simply used “are” with countable noun and Plurals. While Used “is” with uncountable things and Singulars. Examples There are a lot of children in the garden. (Children are countable). There is a lot of pollution in the air. (Pollution is uncountable).

That is the generally simplified way to do it as noted in the article, but you will find exceptions!

My offering to you is a lot of thanks.

“There is a lot of apples.”

The above sentence is correct. The sentence has a prepositional phrase (of apples) that may be removed, leaving, “There is a lot.” The word “lot” is singular.

Any argument to the contrary is wrong. Maybe it’s British English, but in the U.S., it’s “There is a lot of ___________.” (Fill in the blank; it doesn’t matter since it’s in a prepositional phrase.

Sorry, I’m late to this conversation, but I just found it today.

Thanks for your input – you’re right, of course, that theoretically that is how the rule should work, but the reality is that language is not used based on rules, the rules are there to interpret usage. In this case, a very significant portion of English speakers use “there are a lot”, hence we have to reanalyse what is really being understood in these sentences. Linguistic study tools like Google Trends and Google Ngram show that there is an almost 50/50 split in this usage – which is historically true and has even seen, since 2005 until now, a shift towards the slim majority using “there are a lot” (you can see this here ). This data considers both America and the UK (though Trends suggest “there is a lot” remains more common in the North East of the States). It is not fair to simply say people are incorrect, there is a reason that language trends shift, and this article attempts to explain the understanding behind this case. To your point, I could just as easily say the sentence contains a quantifier (a lot of) that may be removed, leaving “There are apples.”, as when English speakers say “There are a lot…” that is the reasoning behind using “are” over “is”.

Naturally, I understand we need rules to aid learning and understanding, but there is a point at which rules must also be reinterpreted, and you have to ask how helpful is it to label a very significant portion of English speakers as being ‘wrong’. The usage will not go away for being technically inappropriate, it is surely better to understand why many find it acceptable. However, that said, in light of your comment I have slightly tweaked the article to make it clear that this is we’re doing here.

Phil, I got a lot out of your explanation, thanks. But how can describe “many” as an adverb, or as acting like an adverb? I don’t see how it modifies either a verb or an adjective. Yet you describe “a lot of” as being used “like a quantifying adverb, like ‘many'”. Other sources don’t bear that out, as far as I can see. Confused!

Hi Nate, Thanks for the question – you’re right to be confused, that should say ‘quantifying adjective’, not adverb. Apologies for the mix-up, it’s one I actually noticed recently myself so I’m not sure why I didn’t update it! I must’ve thought I had a good reason for saying adverb at the time of writing, but no, it was a mistake, I’m sorry about that – but I’ve updated it now. (On this issue, it might also be considered a determiner, instead of a quantifying adjective, but the usage in a sentence is essentially the same.)

Thanks, Phil. Well, now I feel smart, so it’s good for everybody!

Glad to hear it!

Thank you! My son (in the 4th grade) wrote in his english homework ”There are a lot of mushrooms in the forest”. I said ”that is correct” and my wife disagreed. After reading your article she believed me and our son.

Greetings from Finland

I’m glad to hear it helped!

If you are counting coins in a classroom on a chalkboard and then writing about it, “there are forty cents on the board” or is it “there is forty cents on the board”

When it comes to money, we tend to use a plural if we are talking about individual items of money but singular when talking about a total amount, so “there is forty cents [total]” or “there are forty cents [forty coins]”

Hello Phil. It is so funny that this mail came around today. You see, the other day I was translating a tiny text into English (I am not English myself) and put it There is a number of…. but the grammar suggestion on the PC prompted to change into There are…. I carried out an investigation and though was absolutely sure I could write There is a number… changed as the Word suggested. I was going to write to you and ask but made up my mind not to disturb you. And now this very helpful article. Thank you for the work you are doing. Good luck.

Hi Tammy, I’m glad you hear it was good timing! Yes, Word can be quite technical in its suggestions, it’s often worth questioning them!

Dr Williams,

Would you please clarify the correct use of “there is” or “there are” on the sentence below:

“In England, there IS the metro and the tram,” OR

“In England, there ARE the metro and the tram.”

Please let me know the correct use of “is” and “are” in this example.

Thank you : )

Hi Kari – first, I’m not a doctor! 🙂 But yes, this is one where it could be a bit flexible; “there are the metro and the tram” would be the more simply grammatically correct version as we are introducing a plural of two objects. However, “there is” might be considered more natural and more common in spoken English because the verb is followed by a singular noun. With lists of singular nouns, you’ll find “is” is rather common here. We might justify it by suggesting something like the complete list represents a singular unit (e.g. the complete English transport system), but realistically it’s more just a case that it sounds more natural to say “is” due to the following singular noun. Strict grammarians would tell you “is” is incorrect, but in practice (and as English is a living language, this is really what matters most!), you’ll find “is” is quite acceptable here.

It is : ‘there is the metro and the tram’. The test is , would you say ‘there is the metro and there is the tram’ ? ; or would you say ‘there are the metro and there are the tram’ ? You have your answer if you use this test every time.

Would you agree in common spoken English that many people would say There’s a lot people here rather than There are a lot of people here? This is what led me here…

Hi David, sorry for the slow response, but yes I would, in general I’d say in spoken English ‘There’s’ is much more common than ‘There are’ regardless the context/grammar.

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homework vs. a homework

When is it acceptable to use "a homework?". As an ESL practitioner, I had to look it up, and found a source which says "a homework" is only acceptable among native speakers. So, should non-native speakers just stick to "homework" as uncountable?

• countability

• 4 In the US "homework" is considered to be a "mass" noun and articles are not used. (May be different in the UK or India.) A "homework assignment" is an individual piece of homework and does take an article. –  Hot Licks Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 3:56
• 1 Native speakers don't say a homework . –  GoDucks Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 4:16
• Possible duplicate of Is "homework" countable? –  user24743 Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 5:17

2 Answers 2

Whereas it's foreseeable that some native English speaker could get away with saying, "I have a homework due in second period," to mean that they have a singular homework assignment due then, it isn't standard fare. Native speakers don't say it this way. In 22 years of schooling, from kindergarten through my PhD, I've never heard anyone say it like that. Perhaps the reference is saying that a native speaker could get away with it, while a ESL student could not, which is probably true. Rest assured that "homework" remains an uncountable noun.

• 1 I am old enough to remember when in Britain it wasn't called homework , it was called prep (preparation). In the British public-school (meaning private) system, historically children did not go home . The posh classes sent their little darlings to Dickensian boarding schools which were more like fierce prisons. But words like prep , and matron lingered on into the day-systems of the 1950s. Now prep was not a mass noun. In our first year we got two preps a night e.g. Mon-Maths & French; Tues Latin & Biology etc. –  WS2 Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 9:50
• @WS2 : Sounds absolutely lovely. 'Please, sir, I want some more.' –  Benjamin Harman Commented Jan 13, 2016 at 10:34

In general, you should try to avoid saying "a homework." (As a native speaker, it sounds very strange)

The best reason I can think of why it sounds strange is because the word is indefinite in size. Saying "a" homework contradicts its nature of being indefinite by assigning a size to something that is arbitrary. For example, you can say that I have seven "assignments", but I cannot say that I have seven "homeworks".

(Depending on what your native language is, this may or may not feel natural)

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• English (US)

How do you say this in English (US)? "there were a lot of homework" or "there was a lot of homework" See a translation

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• English (US) Near fluent

There was a lot of homework bc homework doesn't have a plural :)

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It's like there are countable and uncountable words (they exist in Spanish too, e.g. "Tarea" doesn't have a plural right? :)

Putas madres hahaha.

• How do you say this in English (US)? "방학이 짧아졌어." or "방학이 줄어들었어."
• How do you say this in English (US)? "I study my major" or "I study in my major"
• How do you say this in English (US)? "실력이 좋아졌네!" "전보다 훨씬 잘했는데?" "실력이 많이 녹슬었구나"
• How do you say this in English (US)? "after I do some my homework" does it make sense?
• How do you say this in English (US)? "it's fine to me" or "it's fine for me"
• 私の趣味はたくさんあります。は I have a lot of hobby. で合っていますか？
• How do you say this in English (US)? I feel a lot better
• How can I have a lot of English words ?
• How do you say this in English (US)? 今日は朝からずっと頭痛が続いてる。 コーヒーを濃いめに淹れて飲んでみた。 カフェインが効いてくれるといいなぁ。
• How do you say this in English (US)? pronuncia
• How do you say this in English (US)? اخذ
• How do you say this in English (US)? 싫어
• How do you say this in English (US)? 좋아하는
• How do you say this in English (US)? 日本語でもうまく会話できないことがあるのに、英語でできるわけないだろう
• How do you say this in English (US)? How do you say 'prednost'?
• How do you say this in English (US)? 月經來
• How do you say this in English (US)? may I say "pay tribute/respect to" someone who is dead or a...
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• How do you say this in English (US)? hola
• How do you say this in English (US)? hello
• How do you say this in Korean? "sorry" when you are talking with senior
• How do you say this in English (US)? como se diz camiseta ?

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Is homework a necessary evil?

After decades of debate, researchers are still sorting out the truth about homework’s pros and cons. One point they can agree on: Quality assignments matter.

By Kirsten Weir

March 2016, Vol 47, No. 3

Print version: page 36

• Schools and Classrooms

Homework battles have raged for decades. For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.

But when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book.

The 10-minute rule

In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. But it may not be that simple.

Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. But not all students benefit. In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research , 2006).

Then again, test scores aren't everything. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because [teachers] think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But we don't know for sure that's the case."

Even when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level — from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.

Beyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.

In a recent study of Spanish students, Rubén Fernández-Alonso, PhD, and colleagues found that students who were regularly assigned math and science homework scored higher on standardized tests. But when kids reported having more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per day, scores declined ( Journal of Educational Psychology , 2015).

"At all grade levels, doing other things after school can have positive effects," Cooper says. "To the extent that homework denies access to other leisure and community activities, it's not serving the child's best interest."

Children of all ages need down time in order to thrive, says Denise Pope, PhD, a professor of education at Stanford University and a co-founder of Challenge Success, a program that partners with secondary schools to implement policies that improve students' academic engagement and well-being.

"Little kids and big kids need unstructured time for play each day," she says. Certainly, time for physical activity is important for kids' health and well-being. But even time spent on social media can help give busy kids' brains a break, she says.

All over the map

But are teachers sticking to the 10-minute rule? Studies attempting to quantify time spent on homework are all over the map, in part because of wide variations in methodology, Pope says.

A 2014 report by the Brookings Institution examined the question of homework, comparing data from a variety of sources. That report cited findings from a 2012 survey of first-year college students in which 38.4 percent reported spending six hours or more per week on homework during their last year of high school. That was down from 49.5 percent in 1986 ( The Brown Center Report on American Education , 2014).

The Brookings report also explored survey data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which asked 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students how much homework they'd done the previous night. They found that between 1984 and 2012, there was a slight increase in homework for 9-year-olds, but homework amounts for 13- and 17-year-olds stayed roughly the same, or even decreased slightly.

Yet other evidence suggests that some kids might be taking home much more work than they can handle. Robert Pressman, PhD, and colleagues recently investigated the 10-minute rule among more than 1,100 students, and found that elementary-school kids were receiving up to three times as much homework as recommended. As homework load increased, so did family stress, the researchers found ( American Journal of Family Therapy , 2015).

Many high school students also seem to be exceeding the recommended amounts of homework. Pope and Galloway recently surveyed more than 4,300 students from 10 high-achieving high schools. Students reported bringing home an average of just over three hours of homework nightly ( Journal of Experiential Education , 2013).

On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort and paying more attention in class, Galloway says. But they were not more invested in the homework itself. They also reported greater academic stress and less time to balance family, friends and extracurricular activities. They experienced more physical health problems as well, such as headaches, stomach troubles and sleep deprivation. "Three hours per night is too much," Galloway says.

In the high-achieving schools Pope and Galloway studied, more than 90 percent of the students go on to college. There's often intense pressure to succeed academically, from both parents and peers. On top of that, kids in these communities are often overloaded with extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs. "They're very busy," Pope says. "Some kids have up to 40 hours a week — a full-time job's worth — of extracurricular activities." And homework is yet one more commitment on top of all the others.

"Homework has perennially acted as a source of stress for students, so that piece of it is not new," Galloway says. "But especially in upper-middle-class communities, where the focus is on getting ahead, I think the pressure on students has been ratcheted up."

Yet homework can be a problem at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well. Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, Internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs, says Lea Theodore, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are less likely to have computers or a quiet place to do homework in peace.

"Homework can highlight those inequities," she says.

Quantity vs. quality

One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.

"Students are assigned a lot of busywork. They're naming it as a primary stressor, but they don't feel it's supporting their learning," Galloway says.

"Homework that's busywork is not good for anyone," Cooper agrees. Still, he says, different subjects call for different kinds of assignments. "Things like vocabulary and spelling are learned through practice. Other kinds of courses require more integration of material and drawing on different skills."

But critics say those skills can be developed with many fewer hours of homework each week. Why assign 50 math problems, Pope asks, when 10 would be just as constructive? One Advanced Placement biology teacher she worked with through Challenge Success experimented with cutting his homework assignments by a third, and then by half. "Test scores didn't go down," she says. "You can have a rigorous course and not have a crazy homework load."

Still, changing the culture of homework won't be easy. Teachers-to-be get little instruction in homework during their training, Pope says. And despite some vocal parents arguing that kids bring home too much homework, many others get nervous if they think their child doesn't have enough. "Teachers feel pressured to give homework because parents expect it to come home," says Galloway. "When it doesn't, there's this idea that the school might not be doing its job."

Galloway argues teachers and school administrators need to set clear goals when it comes to homework — and parents and students should be in on the discussion, too. "It should be a broader conversation within the community, asking what's the purpose of homework? Why are we giving it? Who is it serving? Who is it not serving?"

Until schools and communities agree to take a hard look at those questions, those backpacks full of take-home assignments will probably keep stirring up more feelings than facts.

Further reading

• Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001
• Galloway, M., Connor, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81 (4), 490–510. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469
• Pope, D., Brown, M., & Miles, S. (2015). Overloaded and underprepared: Strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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"Was" or "were" for "half a dozen"

In Microsoft Word, the following sentence is flagged. It tells me to use "was" instead of "were"

There were half a dozen books strewn about the floor.

I would think that you would use "were" since it's a quantity more than one. You wouldn't say, "There was twelve books strewn about the floor." Does the use of the "half" modify it somehow?

• grammatical-number
• verb-agreement

• 14 Microsoft Word grammar check is less than perfect. –  Henry Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 18:35
• Ditto Henry. While a grammar flag from Word is worth investigating, don't take them too seriously. Once once of my kids got a homework paper where she was supposed to identify the grammar errors in a collection of sentences. Just for fun I typed the quiz into MS Word. It got under 60% right. Failing grade. –  Jay Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 20:45
• An answer to question 64581 tries to vet "A half of all pensioners [are/??is] living below...". An answer to question 69546 that mentions number-transparent quantificational nouns probably answers definitively. Question #27955 and answer use "half ... are" without comment. –  James Waldby - jwpat7 Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 6:26

5 Answers 5

Formally speaking, the Word grammar checker is right. The subject of there were is the word half , which is singular. So under formal grammar the sentence should be:

There was half a dozen books on the floor.

However, many people find this sentence to be odd in practice, since English speakers often prefer "semantic number agreement", in which the effective plurality of a phrase is determined by its meaning and not the grammatical number of its head. Therefore, for many registers people prefer your original example:

There were half a dozen books on the floor.

If you're writing something formal and can't abide to say there was half a dozen , then rephrase the sentence to avoid phrases like half a dozen .

• 2 Isn't the subject books , and "half a dozen" could be seen as an adjectival phrase? –  Jez Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 18:49
• 6 I personally think that's the wrong analysis. "half a dozen" is a quantifying adjective phrase, it should not be split the other way. –  Hellion Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 18:59
• 5 There were (five) (a hundred) (a googol) (a dozen) (half a dozen) books on the floor. These are all the same construction. –  Mark Beadles Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 19:52
• 1 I respectively disagree. It is incorrect to say that there *was half a dozen books on the floor. Please see my answer. –  tchrist ♦ Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 19:47
• 1 It is certainly incorrect to treat 'half a dozen eggs' (say) or 'a dozen eggs' as having different agreement than '6 eggs' or '12 eggs'. Notice that tchrist's correct answer cites a supporting authority. –  Edwin Ashworth Commented Aug 9, 2016 at 16:13

It is throwing that because of the grammatical number of half . You are correct that were should be used—the grammar checker isn't smart enough to detect this.

I’m sorry, but I believe the accepted answer is wrong.

The “half (of) a NUMBER ” construct works like “a lot of SOMETHING ” or “a few of SOMETHING ” does, in that the verb should agree with the number of the noun that follows those constructs, not with something like half or lot or few , even though each of those is by itself nominally singular.

This is what is called a predeterminer , and it does not affect the grammatical concordance of the noun it modifies with that noun’s verb. In works like an adjectival phrase, if you would. From Cognitive English Grammar , by Günter Radden and René Dirven :

More rarely, a quantifier occurs before a determiner; in this function quantifiers are usually described as predeterminers . . . . More rarely, a quantifier may precede an indefinite determiner as in half a dozen or half a million , where the quantifier half describes a clear subset of a well-defined set.

You can find no end of examples in examples of such things retaining their plural number in printed literature, and none of them becoming singular. Here are just a few:

• Yet not a hundred people in that battle knew for what they fought, or why; not a hundred of the inconsiderate rejoicers in the victory, why they rejoiced. Not half a hundred people were the better for the gain or loss. Not half–a–dozen men agree to this hour on the cause of merits. . . . [Dickens]
• Here were half a hundred boys not looking for favors or tips at this season of the year when the average individual is inclined to be generous, but half a hundred boys who were out the help others. . . . [ Boys’ Life ]
• A million cascade brooks unite to form a thousand torrent creeks ; a thousand torrent creeks unite to form half a hundred rivers beset with cataracts ; half a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado, which rolls, a mad, turbid stream, into the Gulf of Colorado [Powell]
• The half a hundred houses of the big village were dark. [O Henry]
• A further half-a-million Germans were deported in WWII from their age- old home in the Volga region. . . . [ Central Asia ]
• YES, over half a million delighted men and women all over the world have learned music this quick, easy way. [ Popular Mechanics ]
• Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, [ Quote It Completely!: World Reference Guide to More Than 5,500 Memorable ... ]
• Half a dozen women were setting tables for the evening supper; half a dozen more were busy in the kitchen. . . . [ Boys’ Life ]

Readers and posters here seem to be concerned with whether predeterminer half used with a plural Noun Phrase should be regarded as singular or plural.I thought some hard talking facts might be in order to resolve this issue.

A Google search for:

"over half the people was"

... with the phrase in quotation marks as in the example, returned a staggering three hits! Two of these were along the lines of "the average age of over half the people was 2.14..." So that reduces it to one valid hit of the type with which we're concerned here.

On the other hand the same search for:

"over half the people were"

... gives a return of 245, 000 results. Now on the basis that grammar is what people actually do when they speak, this means that Over half the people were is 245,000,000 % more likely to be grammatical than Over half the people is .

If further evidence is required, the number of instances of Over half the people were from Google books is 2,100. The number of instances of Over half the people was , surprisingly, is 1 . However, this single example on close inspection turns out to be in the form of the following:

The standard of living for over half the people was beneath what would have been considered enough for an animal in France or England.

Here the subject of was is the non-countable Noun Phrase standard of living . This reassuringly puts the number of published examples of Over half the people was - specifically of the type we're after - at zero.

So purely on an empirical basis, we can discard any notion of Over half the people grammatically occurring with a singular verb form! Full stop. Over and out!

[However, there is an interesting side story here because of the the existential sentence in the OP's question. It used to be, and to a certain extent still is , common to find existential "there was" used with a following plural Noun Phrase. Thousand upon thousand of such examples are to be found in print and even in scholarly works.]

• 1 See, this is that same problem. When you have a half dozen books , the head is still books and plural; it doesn’t become half and singular. It’s an error of analysis, and it is made by many, including the hundred trillion monkeys who cranked out Microsoft Word’s grammar checker. But as you point out, it just doesn’t happen in real life because native speakers intuitively know better without realizing why. I don’t know a good tag to umbrella the problem-space with. –  tchrist ♦ Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 16:12

To say it in short form - You can agree the verb form with half, that's more a grammatical agreement, and you can agree it with books, that's a more logical agreement. And people prefer the logical agreement.

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“A lot of is” or “a lot of are” in English

The usage of singular and plural verbs in English is sometimes more complicated than in other languages. One example of this phenomenon is the phrase “a lot of”.

Usually, when something has an indefinite article, i.e. “a” or “an”, it is followed by a singular verb, for example “a tree is”, not “a tree are”. However, “a lot of” is used in a way similar to collective nouns — when we talk about several objects, e.g. “a lot of trees”, we use plural verbs, e.g. “a lot of trees are”, not “is”:

Another way to look at this is that in English, unlike many other languages, the subject doesn’t have to be in the nominative (grammatically, “of trees” is in the genitive). In sentences like the above, you should ask yourself: “what has been planted?” Since the answer is “new trees” and you would say “new trees have”, that’s the verb form you should use, regardless of what precedes the trees.

“A lot of” can be used also for non-countable nouns, i.e. nouns describing a substance or a material, such as “water”, “sand”, “iron” etc. In this case, since the noun is in the singular, so is the verb:

By the way, have you already seen my brand new web app for non-native speakers of English ? It's based on reading texts and learning by having all meanings, pronunciations, grammar forms etc. easily accessible. It looks like this:

Use the image

We rented our house on Airbnb for 15 years. It was so much work that we had to stop.

• Before Airbnb was even invented, my husband and I started renting our home to make extra money.
• We bought multiple homes that we rented on Airbnb throughout the years.
• Airbnb income is not passive, and now I don't rent my home anymore.

Renting your home to strangers for money wasn't even on the horizon when my husband and I bought our first house almost 20 years ago.

But the little bungalow in Louisville, Kentucky , wasn't far from the racetrack where the famous Kentucky Derby runs every May. I thought renting our house to race-goers would be an easy way to make a quick paycheck.

So in 2007, before Airbnb was even invented , we'd started what would eventually be called house-hacking — renting your own home to generate income to pay for itself. We could earn enough over the race weekend to cover three months of mortgage.

We were early Airbnb adopters

It didn't go well at first, though, with our first guests writing us a bad check. So when Airbnb came along with some guardrails to protect hosts, we were super early adopters.

Although it's commonplace now, in those early days, friends thought we'd lost it when we let strangers stay in our house. "What if they lick your plates and put them back?" I'll always remember one aghast friend asking.

Related stories

Renting out that house led to the idea that we could Airbnb a $17,000 triplex in Detroit we bought in 2014 after I fell in love with the city while visiting. We were able to use the income to recoup the renovation costs, and we double-dipped by renting our Louisville house anytime we were in Detroit . We divided our time between cities, keeping that house for a year and a half. That experience propelled us to buy a sprawling Victorian in a historic neighborhood of Louisville in 2016.

"We could Airbnb the shit out of this!" my husband's text read when he sent me the $200,000 listing. A beautiful house that just needed some work, with a third floor guest suite and a carriage house, it had tons of potential as a short-term rental rental. We estimated we could probably cover the renovation cost and maybe even the mortgage with the income . Income that we thought would be passive.

It didn't turn out to be passive, though, at least when it came to the amount of work and worry that went into eventually becoming one of Airbnb's longest-tenured super hosts. Even switching to renting to travel nurses during COVID didn't come without stress, and we eventually sold the house in 2023.

Realtors know that people are looking for short-term rentals

I've been househunting and have lost count of the number of listings I've seen promising income from short-term rentals.

Now, we're not in the old days anymore, and most cities have  licensing requirements  for short-term rentals that restrict the number in any given area and impose tax collections. But not everyone plays by those rules, and sometimes, listing agents on behalf of sellers promote this revenue stream on houses that don't have the required license — and aren't even eligible for one.

After spending a lot of money and time getting the legal permits and licenses for my home, I think this practice is pretty unsavory — especially from a profession that's supposed to have strict ethical guidelines. Even when the listing truly does have legal income potential, it's not a magic bullet or a fast path to riches.

Maybe rentals can be considered passive by IRS definitions, but here's the truth from someone who's been doing this for more than 15 years: rentals are endless work.

Not just the cleaning, or calendar management, or the trying to delight guests or respond to issues. It's also the emotional labor of worrying about reviews. You're only ever as good as your last two or three, and I stressed every detail trying to keep up my all-five-star superhost status.

I've had so many issues with my rental

Owning a home built in the late 1800s can be a source of worry in the best of circumstances. However, inviting a rotating cast of strangers under the roof, strangers who can leave reviews that can make or break your business, brings its own host of additional worries.

Just like I could never turn off my phone in case a guest needed something, I couldn't turn off the worry, either.

When it rained, I worried about leaks — which happened. When it was cold, I worried about the mini-split HVAC going out, which it did — on a freezing Christmas Day. When it was hot, I worried the AC couldn't keep up — which it often couldn't in a 130-year-old third-floor space where guests thought they could set the temperature to 60 on 100-degree days.

But the money was good when it was good , so it was worth it. Until competition ratcheted up, and with that, a push from Airbnb to discount prices. Even before COVID, I'd grown tired of their incessant reminders to cut my price. So when the pandemic hit, I made the pivot to renting to travel nurses at my two spaces. That wasn't a ton less money, but a lot less work. Instead of doing laundry and cleaning and answering a fresh batch of questions every two or three days, it was every three months.

I recommend people do their homework before becoming hosts

To anyone tempted to buy a property just for its rental potential, I say proceed with caution.

Do your own homework to make sure you can legally rent it; don't rely on the listing claims. Check local listings to see how much competition you'll have and how much they're getting. Consider how much time you can siphon from your other job to run your rental, and what that will cost. Evaluate your budget to make sure you can carry the mortgage indefinitely if misfortune — pandemic, natural disaster, terrorist attack, major repairs, a pest infestation — strikes and you lose that income.

As for me, my new home is a single family. Nope, no income to subsidize the mortgage, but also no suitcases rolling around above my bedroom, no nagging worry about what-ifs, and nobody to worry about pleasing but, well, myself.

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.

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N.H. man charged with murder after shooting in Lowell temple parking lot, DA says

• Updated: Jul. 24, 2024, 6:38 a.m.
• | Published: Jul. 24, 2024, 6:30 a.m.
• Charlie McKenna | [email protected]

A New Hampshire man was arrested Tuesday in Lawrence and now faces a murder charge in connection with a fatal shooting in the parking lot of a temple in Lowell on Saturday , officials announced.

Paul Garcia, 38, of Dover, New Hampshire, is also charged with armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery by discharge of a firearm, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Lowell Police Superintendent Greg Hudon said in a joint statement.

On Saturday at around 4:53 a.m., Lowell police learned of shots fired in the parking lot of the Swaminarayan Temple on Middlesex Street. When officers arrived they found 30 people had gathered in the parking lot and were directed to two men who had been shot, according to the statement. Both men were taken to a hospital.

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Kamala Harris' 2020 campaign was a mess. If she replaces Biden, this time could be a lot different.

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris had one great day in her ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign: her first.

Then came a rapid collapse.

The freshman senator who announced her candidacy in January 2019 before 20,000 cheering supporters in Oakland, California, dropped out in December before a single vote had been cast.

By the time she quit, Harris lacked money, a message and a cohesive campaign operation — all ingredients of a successful candidacy.

It was a hard fall for someone whose youth and biracial identity evoked the appeal of the last Democratic president, Barack Obama.

“I have mixed emotions about it,” her rival and the eventual winner, Joe Biden, said upon hearing she had withdrawn from the Democratic nomination contest. He called her a “first-rate intellect.”

Now, Harris is set to get another shot. As the sitting vice president, she is a leading candidate to succeed Biden after his exit from the race, receiving his immediate endorsement. Other elected officials might step forward to challenge Harris, dividing Democrats and clouding the general election picture ahead of a November showdown with Donald Trump.

“I know there are people working behind the scenes who think she may not be the best one suited to take us to victory,” said Maria Cardona, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s rules panel, speaking before Biden's withdrawal. “If that is seen as a full-on, inorganic tactic that is being led by senior people within the Democratic Party, there will be a civil war inside the Democratic Party the likes of which we will not survive.”

With only a few months to wage a campaign against Trump, Harris couldn’t afford to repeat the mistakes that tanked her last presidential bid. There would be little time to recover. Hers would need to be a virtually error-free sprint to Election Day.

When Harris gave that announcement speech before a hometown crowd five years ago, her prospects seemed dazzling. A Monmouth University poll released the week after she entered the race showed her running third in a crowded Democratic field that eventually numbered more than two dozen. With 11% support, she trailed only Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, both of whom had run presidential races before.

Harris had earned her bona fides as a former prosecutor and had distinguished herself in Senate committees as a feared interrogator who could pick apart a witness’s testimony.

A pro-Harris super PAC prepared an ad that showed her grilling Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and two Trump-era attorneys general, William Barr and Jeff Sessions.

It never aired. On the day the $1 million ad buy was supposed to begin running, Harris dropped out.

Making the leap from state to national politics proved daunting for her. Rivals like Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren had spent much of their adult lives steeped in policy.

Harris hadn’t mastered policy questions that dominated the Democratic debates. She had originally backed Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan, but later released her own version that carved out a continued role for private insurers.

She quickly faced incoming fire from the left and center of the ideological spectrum.

Sanders’ aides denounced her proposal as a “terrible policy.” Biden’s campaign joined the attack, warning that she would undercut Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act.

“She was trying to figure out where she landed in the primary field on a bunch of issues,” one of her former California campaign advisers said. As a state official, Harris “hadn’t had to deal with that level of nuance.”

Another policy stumble marred what seemed to be her breakthrough moment. In a debate in June, she attacked Biden for opposing school busing in the 1970s.

Harris mentioned a “little girl” in California who had been bused to school every day. “That little girl was me,” she said. Within hours of the exchange, her campaign triumphantly started selling “That little girl was me” T-shirts for $29.99 apiece.

But after the debate, she struggled to offer a consistent answer to whether she believed federally mandated busing should be used to integrate schools.

A Biden campaign aide seized on the equivocation, tweeting that she was “tying herself in knots trying not to answer the very question she posed” to Biden.

This time, instead of facing off against fellow Democrats, Harris would be able to elevate one to serve as her running mate. She would have a plethora of promising choices to balance the ticket, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, all of whom won in places where Trump performed well.

Admirers say that Harris has grown in the job. Early in her campaign, she traveled to South Carolina and spoke to a group of Democratic women.

“The woman that I met in early 2019 was not as confident and was significantly more tentative in the way she presented herself to potential voters,” Amanda Loveday, a senior adviser to a pro-Biden super PAC called Unite the Country, said before Biden withdrew.

While affirming she wanted Biden to remain at the top of the ticket, Loveday said of the vice president: “The woman I met back then is very different from the woman I see on TV today. She’s grown as a leader and she has developed more confidence.”

Both Harris’ government office and the Biden-Harris campaign declined to comment for this article before Biden's withdrawal.

A campaign is akin to an expensive startup business on a national scale. It needs an inspirational candidate, but it also relies on a unified staff. Harris didn’t have one. People close to the campaign say that lines of authority were blurred between Harris’ sister and campaign chairwoman, Maya Harris, and other advisers who’d worked on her state races but weren’t blood relatives.

In November 2019, a campaign staff member wrote a letter, obtained by The New York Times , that depicted a campaign in crisis.

“Campaigns have highs and lows, mistakes and miscalculations,” wrote Kelly Mehlenbacher. “But because we have refused to confront our mistakes, foster an environment of critical thinking and honest feedback, or trust the expertise of talented staff, we find ourselves making the same unforced errors over and over.”

By that point, Harris was running fifth, her poll numbers down to 6%. Money was dwindling, accelerating the downward spiral. That fall, Harris’ campaign laid off staff and moved others from her national headquarters in Baltimore to Iowa to save money.

Any hope of reviving her candidacy with a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses in January was short-lived. On Dec. 3, Harris dropped out. She emailed staff that she “simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.”

A Harris sequel would look nothing like the original, former advisers said. She’d be buoyed by a Democratic Party that would coalesce behind her, desperate to defeat Trump. Donors who’ve bailed on Biden might take a fresh look at the race with a younger candidate atop the ticket.

She would also likely inherit the parts of Biden’s campaign that are working — like the massive field and data operation s that are designed to drive voter turnout. While Biden’s most senior aides would likely be gone, many rank-and-file campaign staff with long resumes may choose to remain.

Harris’ background as a prosecutor could prove advantageous in a future debate. Rather than sparring with fellow Democrats over health care and education policy, she would be boring in on Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan.

“Literally everything” would be different, starting with her pitch to voters, a longtime Harris adviser told NBC News. “It is a three-month sprint and not a two-year slog.”

Peter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.

Katherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News.

Trump rally shooter Thomas Crooks: Neighbors, classmates, employer speak

A 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania fired multiple shots at former President Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday evening.

A bullet grazed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's upper right ear , leaving him bloodied but not seriously injured. One rally attendee was killed in the gunfire and two others were "critically injured," authorities later said.

Here's what we know:

Who is the shooter at the rally?

The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the person behind the assassination attempt. Agency officials released little additional information, saying its investigation remains active and ongoing. They did not indicate what Crooks' motive might have been.

Crooks worked at a nearby nursing home. An administrator there told USA TODAY that the company was shocked to learn of the shooting and that Crooks had passed a background check for his job.

What did Thomas Crooks do at the crime scene?

During the shooting Saturday, Trump's right ear was injured, seconds before he was whisked off stage by Secret Service personnel.  One man attending the rally was killed  and two others were injured; Crooks was then killed by Secret Service agents , authorities said.

FBI special agent Kevin Rojek said on a call with media Sunday afternoon that authorities found "a suspicious device" when they searched the shooter's vehicle. Bomb technicians inspected the device and rendered it safe. 

"I'm not in a position to provide any expertise on the specific components of any potential bombs or suspicious packages," Rojek added. 

Rojek said law enforcement is sending the rifle and Crooks' cell phone, along with other evidence, to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia "for processing and exploitation."

"We're in the process of searching his phone," Rojek said.

Maps and graphics: What happened in the Trump assassination attempt

What is Crooks' background?

Crooks is registered to vote as a Republican in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, according to county voter records. His voter registration status has been active since 2021.

Federal Election Commission records show that in January 2021, Crooks made a $15 donation to the Progressive Turnout Project, a group working to increase voter turnout for Democrats.

Born Sept. 20, 2003, Crooks does not have a criminal record in Pennsylvania, nor has he been sued there, according to state court records. There is no record of him in federal court databases, either.

Where did Thomas Crooks work?

Crooks worked as a dietary aid, a job that generally involves food preparation, at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation, less than a mile from his home. In a statement provided to USA TODAY on Sunday, Marcie Grimm, the facility's administrator, said she was "shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement."

"Thomas Matthew Crooks performed his job without concern and his background check was clean," Grimm said. "We are fully cooperating with law enforcement officials at this time. Due to the ongoing investigation, we cannot comment further on any specifics. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Former President Trump and the victims impacted by this terrible tragedy. We condemn all acts of violence."

The facility is owned by Kennett Square, Pennsylvania-based Genesis Healthcare. A job posting from the company for a dietary aid in the Pittsburgh area puts the pay at $16 an hour.

Thomas Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania

Crooks' home address is listed in Bethel Park, a suburb in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, voter records show. That three-bedroom brick house has been owned since 1998 by Matthew and Mary Crooks, who appear to be his parents. Telephone calls to the couple were not returned overnight.

Near the Crooks home, Dean Sierka, 52, said he had known Crooks and his parents for years, as neighbors separated by only a few houses. Sierka’s daughter attended school with Crooks from elementary school through Bethel Park High School, and said she remembers him as quiet and shy.

Dean and his daughter said they would see Crooks at least once a week, often when Crooks was walking to work.

“You wouldn’t have expected this,” Dean Sierka said. “The parents and the family are all really nice people.”

At Bethel Park High School

Thomas Crooks graduated two years ago from Bethel Park High School, the Bethel Park School District confirmed. He was included in a 2022 local news article about recipients of a National Math & Science Initiative Star Award at the public high school, which enrolls about 1,300 students.

Jason Kohler attended Bethel Park High School with Crooks and said he remembers the 20-year-old sat alone at lunch and was “bullied almost every day.” Kids picked on Crooks for wearing camouflage to class and his quiet demeanor, Kohler, 21, said.

Since hearing Crooks has been named as the shooter, Kohler has been speaking with classmates who knew him, most of whom are stunned by the news.“It’s really hard to comprehend,” he said.

Sean Eckert said he went to school with Crooks from 5th through 12th grade. He said Crooks always went by “Tom.“

They shared classes together in elementary and middle school. Eckert said Crooks, though "fairly smart," was quiet and rarely spoke up.

Eckert said Crooks did not seem to have many friends. He didn't recall Crooks being playing any sports, being involved in any clubs or student groups or going to popular campus events. He often wore hunting clothes, so Eckert assumed he hunted.

No one in Eckert's group text from high school seemed to know Crooks very well, he said. They were shocked that someone from their town had done this. They were even more surprised that it was Tom Crooks.

Nursing aide turned sniper: Thomas Crooks' mysterious plot to kill Trump

The gaming-oriented online site Discord said Sunday that it had found an account that appeared to be linked to the shooting suspect. The site removed the account, which “was rarely utilized, has not been used in months, and we have found no evidence that it was used to plan this incident, promote violence, or discuss his political views,“ according to a statement from a Discord spokesperson, adding that the company will coordinate closely with law enforcement.

Crooks was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a shooting club about 8 miles from his home. It is a sprawling complex of 180 acres with rifle, pistol and archery ranges, an area for dog training and a clubhouse, according to the club website.An attorney for the club, Robert Bootay III, confirmed Crooks' membership in an email to USA TODAY, but would not offer additional details.

Where is Bethel Park, Pennsylvania?

Bethel Park is a suburb of Pittsburgh and home to more than 32,000 people – about one thousand fewer than four years ago, according to the latest Census estimates. 

The majority-white, mostly college-educated community has a median household income of $102,177. 

Described as a charming retreat from the hustle and bustle of the big city to its north, Bethel Park boasts tree-line streets, friendly neighborhoods and a low crime rate.

Bethel Park is about 42 miles south of Butler, where the Trump rally was held. The leafy suburban street was alive with law enforcement overnight amid a multi-agency response to the shooting. A member of the Allegheny County bomb squad told reporters his team was headed into the house around midnight, but did not say why.

For hours afterward, the scene remained quiet, with deer passing under the police tape and an occasional neighbor stepping out of their house to see what was happening.

John Wolf, a local construction superintendent who lives down the road, said he’d talked with several worried neighbors.

“People are scared,” Wolf said.

How did Crooks shoot at Trump?

Crooks had been positioned on a rooftop more than 100 yards from the rally site, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said. Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle from the scene.

Joseph Price, special agent in charge of the ATF in Pittsburgh, said the weapon used by the shooter was a rifle.“It was nothing special,” he said in an interview in the parking lot of the Butler Township Municipal Building.

Law enforcement is following up on a “number of suspicious occurrences,” said Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police, including accounts from witnesses who said they tried to flag police about the activity of a person outside the rally moments before the shooting.

The FBI said in a news release that the situation “remains an active and ongoing investigation, and anyone with information that may assist with the investigation is encouraged to submit photos or videos online at  FBI.gov/butler  or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.”

Contributing: Stephanie Warsmith, Tim Evans, Aysha Bagchi, Jessica Guynn, Bryce Buyakie

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July 14, 2024: Line of Storms Produces Swaths of Wind Damage and Embedded Tornadoes

• July 15, 2024: Derecho Produces Widespread Wind Damage and Numerous Tornadoes

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• A line of thunderstorms moved across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana during the night of Sunday, July 14, producing swaths of wind damage, several embedded tornadoes, and flash flooding.
• Additional damage assessments are still being conducted in DeKalb and Kane counties, so this number may still increase.
• Torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding occurring in the area, including in the city of Rockford, which saw considerable flash flooding for the second night in a row.

1.) Esmond Tornado

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When a tornado is known to have occurred but does not cause damage to any qualified damage indicators, or if the only damage is located in an area that is inaccessible to NWS storm survey personnel, then a tornado may be assigned the EF-Unknown (EF-U) rating.

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