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Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Match a pronoun to the noun it refers to in number, especially with collective nouns and indefinite pronouns.

Standard English ConventionsReading and Writing
Practice pronoun-antecedent agreement free

What the SAT actually asks

You make a pronoun agree with the noun it stands in for. The trouble spots are predictable. Collective nouns acting as a unit take singular pronouns. Indefinite subjects such as each, everyone, either, and neither are grammatically singular, though singular they is accepted for a person of unspecified gender. Words that come between the pronoun and its antecedent, especially plural nouns inside prepositional phrases, pull students toward the wrong number.

Pronoun agreement questions usually appear about 1 to 2 times among the 54 reading and writing questions.

Where students lose points

How to attack these questions

  1. 1Point to the exact noun the pronoun replaces and write S or P next to it for singular or plural.
  2. 2Ignore any nouns sitting inside of phrases, since they can never be the antecedent.
  3. 3Read your chosen pronoun back into the sentence with the antecedent substituted in to confirm it fits.

Example questions

Written for this skill, with the answer explained. 47 more are in the app.

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Pronoun-antecedent agreement
Real question

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English? Every student in the lab must clean ______ workstation before leaving for the day.

Easier

A honeybee colony can look like ten thousand separate animals, but it regulates ______ temperature the way a single body does, clustering to warm the brood through the winter and fanning at the entrance to cool the comb in July. A single bee can do neither alone.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) their
  • B) our
  • C) its ✓
  • D) your

Why: The antecedent is the singular "a honeybee colony," and the sentence's own "it regulates" confirms that number, so the possessive must be "its." "their" agrees with the ten thousand separate animals mentioned earlier rather than with the singular colony itself. "our" shifts to a first person that never appears anywhere in the passage. "your" shifts to a second person addressing a reader the passage never introduces.

Easier

The two observatories on Cerro Pachon share a road, a generator and a night-shift cook, and the two buildings stand barely a kilometer apart. Each evening they publish ______ seeing measurements in a single combined file that astronomers anywhere in the world can download the next morning.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) his or her
  • B) their ✓
  • C) its
  • D) our

Why: The antecedent is the plural "the two observatories," restated as "they" in the same clause, so the plural possessive "their" is required. "its" is singular and cannot refer back to two separate observatories. "our" shifts to a first person the passage never establishes. "his or her" is also singular, and it wrongly treats the two institutions as individual people.

Medium

The Hardwick Prize committee reads every submission twice and then meets for a single afternoon. Because it votes only once, the committee announces ______ shortlist and winner together, a compression that the current chair has twice called the prize's only real flaw.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  • A) its ✓
  • B) our
  • C) his or her
  • D) their

Why: "The committee" acts as one body here, and the sentence's own "it votes only once" fixes the pronoun as singular, so "its" is correct. "their" treats the committee as its individual members, which contradicts the "it" used earlier in the same sentence. "our" shifts to a first person the passage never establishes. "his or her" is singular but human, and no individual person has been named to own the shortlist.

Questions students ask

Is everyone singular or plural?

Everyone is grammatically singular and takes a singular verb. For the pronoun that refers back to it, singular they is accepted in current standard usage when the person's gender is unspecified, and the SAT treats it as correct.

What pronoun goes with a collective noun like committee?

Use it and its when the group is acting as a single unit, which is how the SAT presents these nouns. The committee published its findings is correct. Their would be wrong in that sentence.

Why do plural nouns near the pronoun cause errors?

Because they sit closer to the blank than the real antecedent does, usually inside a prepositional phrase. The antecedent is the noun the pronoun replaces, not the nearest noun. Crossing out prepositional phrases removes the distraction.

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Questions on pronoun-antecedent agreement alone, with explanations on every one, and the app tracks which ones you keep missing.

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