So/Neither Agreement Structures in Technical English
5 exercises — practise matching auxiliaries correctly when agreeing with a colleague's statement.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A colleague says: "The staging environment is failing health checks." Which response correctly uses "so" to add agreement about a second, similar subject?
The original statement uses the auxiliary "is" ("is failing"). To agree with "so" and add a second subject, English inverts the auxiliary and the subject, matching the same auxiliary verb: "So is the production environment." Option A is correct. Option B incorrectly switches to "does", which does not match the auxiliary used in the original sentence ("is", not "does"). Option C fails to invert the subject and auxiliary — "so" agreement structures always require inversion (auxiliary before subject), unlike a plain statement. Option D adds a redundant "it", breaking the fixed inversion pattern.
2 / 5
A teammate says: "The build didn't pass on the first try." Which response correctly uses "neither" to add agreement about a negative statement?
The original sentence uses the negative auxiliary "didn't" (past simple). "Neither" agreement structures also invert subject and auxiliary, and the auxiliary must match the tense of the original statement: "Neither did the deployment [pass]." Option A is correct. Option B fails to invert — "neither" requires auxiliary-before-subject order just like "so" does. Option C incorrectly switches to present tense "does", which does not match the past tense "didn't" in the original. Option D incorrectly uses "was", a form of "be", when the original used "do-support" ("didn't pass") — the auxiliary in the response must mirror the auxiliary category used in the original clause.
3 / 5
A manager says: "The team has completed the migration ahead of schedule." Which response correctly uses "so" to agree, matching the perfect aspect?
The original sentence uses present perfect ("has completed"), so the agreement response must use the matching auxiliary "has", inverted before the subject: "So has the QA team." Option B is correct. Option A has the correct auxiliary but fails to invert subject and auxiliary — inversion is obligatory in this construction. Option C incorrectly switches to past simple "did", which does not match the perfect aspect of the original statement. Option D incorrectly switches to present simple "does", also a tense/aspect mismatch. Precisely matching the auxiliary and tense/aspect of the first speaker's statement is the key rule for these agreement structures.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly distinguishes "so" (positive agreement) from "neither" (negative agreement) in a code review exchange?
"Neither" is used to agree with a negative statement, while "so" is used to agree with a positive statement — they cannot be mixed. Option B is correct: Reviewer A's statement is negative ("doesn't handle"), so Reviewer B correctly responds with "Neither does the caller" (meaning: the caller also doesn't handle null input). Option A incorrectly uses "so" (positive agreement marker) to agree with a negative statement — this is a very common error. Option C incorrectly uses "neither" (negative agreement) to agree with a positive statement ("handles... correctly") — this would wrongly imply the caller also fails. Option D attempts to combine "so" with a negated auxiliary ("doesn't"), which is not a valid English construction — "so" agreement structures never contain "not".
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a modal verb in a "so"/"neither" agreement structure?
When the original clause uses a modal verb ("can scale"), the "so" agreement structure must reuse that same modal, inverted before the subject: "so can the database." Option A is correct. Option B has the right modal but fails to invert subject and auxiliary. Option C incorrectly substitutes "does" for the modal "can" — modals are never replaced by do-support in these structures. Option D incorrectly substitutes "is", a form of "be", which does not match the modal "can" used in the first clause. The governing rule across all these examples: whatever auxiliary/modal appears in the first clause must be exactly reused (with correct inversion) in the "so"/"neither" response.