Examples

Example 1

The faculty will decide whether or not the Spanish class can take a field trip to Cancun.

The faculty is made up of several teachers, and the class is made up of several students, so both are collective nouns.

Example 2

Before he performed the card trick, the magician asked Emily to inspect his deck.

Deck is a collective noun that refers to the entire group of playing cards with which the magician is about to astonish Emily and her friends.

Example 3

Our trip to the forest was interrupted by a pack of werewolves.

Here, the forest refers to a collection of trees, and pack refers to a group of werewolves. Both are collective nouns, but only one doesn't get along with vampires.