Collective nouns are one of the SATs favorite ways to trick you — even though they refer to groups made up of multiple people, they are always singular.
Common examples of collective nouns: Jury, Team, City, Country, Agency, Company, Committee, School, University
Whenever one of these words appears in a sentence, you need to check both the verbs and the pronouns that it corresponds to. If either of these is plural, you’ve found your error.
Subject-Verb Disagreement
Correct: The jury has finally returned a verdict after many days of deliberation.
Incorrect: The jury have finally returned a verdict after many days of deliberation.
Pronoun Disagreement
Correct: The jury finally returned its verdict after many days of deliberation.
Incorrect: The jury finally returned their verdict after many days of deliberation.
If, on the other hand, a group noun appears in a sentence in which all verbs and pronouns are correct, the answer is likely to be “No Error.”