Fill in with the appropriate word: The jury _________ divided in their opinion.

The Jury were divided in their opinion

Let us look at the following two cases of subject-verb agreement:

• A collective noun that is used to refer to a single entity is singular.
• Example: The committee has agreed to the proposal.
• Here, the committee is one single unit.
• A collective term that is used to refer to distinct persons is plural.
• Example: The army have continued fighting bravely.
• Here, each individual of the army is considered separately.

• However, in order to employ the verb, one can change their perception of the group as a whole or of the many members of a group.
• In contrast, the jury’s opinions are represented in this sentence as being split.
• Since not all of the individual members are in agreement, it is crucial that the jury take each member’s viewpoint into account.

Summary:

Fill in with the appropriate word: The jury _________ divided in their opinion. (a) were (b) was (c) has been (d) have

The correct answer to the question is ‘were’. So the sentence will be ‘The jury were divided in their opinion’. The concept behind choosing the right answer has been elaborated in this post above.