subject verb agreement - Is "a couple of something" plural or singular?

Which of the followings is correct?

• 
  

  There are still a couple of months left until the end of semester.

  
  


• 
  

  There is still a couple of months left until the end of semester.

  
  

Answer

There is/ are still a couple of months left until the end of semester

"Couple" is a number-transparent noun, meaning that the number of the whole noun phrase is determined not by the head of the NP, but by the number of the oblique (i.e. the complement of of).

Some number-transparent nouns can take singular and plural obliques (A lot of errors were made ~ "a lot of work was done").

But because "couple" means "two" or "a small number", it takes only plural obliques, so in your example, the correct verb is the plural "are".