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A collective noun is a word which we use to define a group or collection of people, animals or things.
Which is/are right?, or are these sentences right?
Singular:
a pack of wolves is ...
an army of ants is...
a set of buttons is...
Plural:
a packs of wolves are ...
an armies of ants are...
a sets of buttons are...
PS. What do you call the 'packs' and what do you call the 'wolves'? Is it identifiers?
To the main question, you can use either
A pack of wolves is (or The pack of wolves is)
or
Packs of wolves are
depending on whether you mean one group of wolves or multiple groups of wolves.
These are just called collective nouns. The special words for different types of animals (a pride of lions, a murder of crows, etc.) are called terms of venery, but this wouldn't apply to other collective nouns like your set of buttons - only to the collective nouns used for various types of animals.
