Correcting Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Errors - SAT Writing

The pronoun "it" should be plural because its antecedent is the plural subject "resources." Only two choices correcty change "it" to "they," but one of them, "as they depend on the reduction of foreign oil," confuses cause and effect. The resources are not dependent on the reduction of foreign oil. The correct answer is "as they may reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

Choose a pronoun that properly agrees with the subject. In this case, "basketball team" is singular, although it represents a group of people, and should be accompanied with "its," instead of "their."

The original sentence contains an error in noun-pronoun agreement: the plural possessive pronoun "their" is used to refer to "the worker," a singular noun. We need to use a singular possessive pronoun to refer to a singular noun, and our choices in this case are "his," "her," and "its." One doesn't use "its" to refer to people, and while "the worker" is not a gendered noun, we can tell that the worker being described in the sentence is male because of the use of the possessive pronoun "his" in the phrases "his lost green helmet" and "made his way home happily." For the sentence to be correct, we need to replace "their" with "his," so the correct answer is "Just as he finished work for the day, the worker found his lost green helmet and made his way home happily."

The sentence as written contains one small error. "It," a singular pronoun, is used to refer to the plural "sporting events." In order to fix this issue, the pronoun needs to be made plural, which is done in "Most men who go to sporting events find them an enjoyable diversion."

Whenever a sentence refers to a person of unknown gender and a singular possessive pronoun is required that refers to that person, one typically includes both the masculine and the feminine possessive pronouns in the phrase "his or her." In this case, "his or her" is a better choice than "their" because "student" is a singular noun, and "their," which is a plural pronoun, does not agree with it in number. Considering the other potential answer choices, "they're" is the contraction of "they are," which would not make sense in the sentence, "it's" is the contraction of "it is," which wouldn't make sense in the sentence either, and "its" is the possessive form of the pronoun "it," which is not used to refer to a person. So, none of those answer choices can be correct.

In this sentence, the subject is "anyone," a singular pronoun. Therefore, all pronouns relating back to "anyone" should be singular. In the underlined portion of the sentence, "preparing a plan that they stick to," "they" is plural, not singular. Now that we have identified the problem, we have to figure out how to correct it.

Given that "anyone" is gender neutral, the best way to improve this sentence is avoid the use of a gendered pronoun (meaning "he" or "she") and simply avoid using a pronoun at all. The correct answer, "preparing a plan and sticking to it," accomplishes this objective and is therefore the best way to improve the sentence.

The use of "your" at the end of the sentence is confusing, as the only reference in the sentence is "a person," and the second person pronoun has no place in the sentence. Changing "your" to a third person possessive pronoun will straighten out this problem. Because we do not know whether the "person" in question is male or female, we should use the phrase "his or her." The correct answer choice, therefore, is "for the rest of his or her life."

The pronoun refers to employees, so the pronoun should be plural rather than the singular he or she.

The original text contains a pronoun agreement error. The intended antecedent of the pronoun "it" is supposed to be "books," which is plural and would therefore require the plural pronoun "them" instead of the singular pronoun "it."

The only answer choices that contain "them" instead of "it" are "that cause them to decay" and "that causes them to decay." The answer choice with "causes," however, uses this singular verb with a plural subject, "materials," and is therefore incorrect.

The original text "the person who has most significantly transformed the world through their charitable actions or scientific discoveries" and the answer choice "the person who most significantly transformed the world through their charitable actions or scientific discoveries" contain pronoun agreement errors because they incorrectly use the plural pronoun "their" to refer to the singular noun "person."

The answer choices "the person that has most significantly transformed the world through his or her charitable actions or scientific discoveries" and "the person that significantly transformed the world through his or her charitable actions or scientific discoveries" are incorrect because they use "that" to refer to a person, when "who" or "whom" should be used when referring to a person. (Remember to use "that" only when referring to non-human living things or objects.)

The answer choice "the person who has most significantly transformed the world through his or her charitable actions or scientific discoveries" is correct because it is the only answer choice that correctly uses "who" and the singular pronoun "his or her" to match the singular noun "person."

The plural possessive pronoun "their" does not agree with its singular subject, "the army." Even though "the army" represents a group of people, it is a singular noun, and should consequently be modified by the pronoun "its."

The word being modified by the underlined portion of the sentence above is "none," which is a singular noun. Therefore, you must use a singular possessive to match up with that word. Because the gender of "none" is not specified, we must use "his or her."

Here, it is clear from the sentence that the food in question belongs to the noun "we." "We" is a plural first-person pronoun. As such, you must use the plural first-person possessive pronoun in conjunction with it: "our."

Here, because of the context of other parts of the sentence, we know that the car being referred to belongs to the "I" of the first sentence. Because that "I" is also the speaker, we know that the correct possessive pronoun to use in conjunction with the car is "my."

Here, the word being modified by the possessive pronoun in question is "organization." "Organization" is a singular noun that is also gender neutral. As such, the correct corresponding possessive pronoun is "its."

The pronoun that refers to the "fake quotations" the reporter might have created must also be plural, since its referent is plural. Therefore, the correct pronoun is "they." "She" is the correct singular pronoun, as it refers to "the reporter."

Because "you" is the pronoun used in the first part of the sentence, "you" should be used again throughout the sentence. Any subject pronoun would work in these positions; the important thing is consistency and agreement. Whichever pronoun is chosen should be used both times. In this case, with "you" solidified as the first pronoun, "you" must also be used in the second position.

"Everyone" is treated as a singular noun, therefore the proper prounoun to use with it is "his or her."

"Mother" is a singular noun, therefore the proper prounoun to use with it is "her."