For example, most students are familiar with the following subject pronouns: On the ACT, personally agreed pronoun errors are usually related to consistency – if a passage is in the third person, you can`t inexplicably introduce the first person halfway through and vice versa. Of course, there are different types of pronouns, and for the purposes of ACT and SAT grammar, it is important to know the fundamental difference between the most common types, which is described in the table below. I mentioned above that plural nouns require plural pronouns and singular nouns require singular pronouns. Usually, this rule seems pretty obvious: it doesn`t make much sense to refer to Jim as “they” or the Avengers as “he.” However, we are talking about the ACT, so errors will be a little more difficult to detect. Let`s go over some of the trickiest cases and how you can catch them. A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun – that`s all! We usually think of pronouns as words like I, he, she or his, all of which are pronouns. But that`s how words are like everyone else, who and everyone. Any word that replaces a noun is a pronoun. For more detailed information on pronouns, see our guide to language parts. Rule: A singular pronoun must replace a singular noun; a plural pronoun must replace a plural noun. If you`re not sure, you can always replace “who” overall with an object pronoun to test it.

We recommend “she” or “him” because these object pronouns end in m (which makes it easier to memorize). It can also be helpful to rearrange parts of the sentence while testing the use of pronouns. The marbles are countable; therefore, the sentence has a plural speaker pronoun. Whenever you use a personal pronoun like her, she or she, you must first have a precursor, the word that replaces the pronoun. The pronoun his refers to President Lincoln. President Lincoln is the ANTECED of the pronoun his. As with number matching, the first step is always to make sure that you know what the precursor of a pronoun is and that the pronoun and precursor match. Beyond this basic principle, avoiding personal agreement issues is usually a matter of consistency – if you start a sentence in the first person, you shouldn`t suddenly switch to the third person without a clear reason. This, this and this and this must have precursors of clear nouns, like any other pronoun.

However, it doesn`t matter if the name comes immediately after the pronoun. A correct version of the above would be: First, replace a regular plural noun for the collective noun. Then use a natural-sounding plural pronoun. Keep in mind that each test is likely to test your knowledge of pronoun questions in different ways (as these are different tests at the end of the day). However, the pronoun strategy we discuss in this article still applies to both exams. Let`s take a look at this example sat pronoun question mentioned earlier in this article. This is taken from the CollegeBoard`s #1 official SAT practice test. It is also possible that a pronoun and a precursor personally disagree: when working with pronouns, it is important that they agree with their predecessors.

The precursors are the person (1st, 2nd or 3rd), the number (singular or plural) or the sex (male or female). Pronoun and precursor agreement is a skill commonly assessed in standardized tests such as SAT and ACT. In mathematics, 1 + 1 = 2. This rule also applies to the matching of pronouns. If you have 1 singular noun + 1 singular noun, then together they are = 2 things or a plural precursor. Which is a subject pronoun, while which is an object pronoun. This interpretation may be good in spoken English, but it would be absolutely wrong on the ACT. I thought it was clear what Luigi was reacting to, there is no real name in the text that serves as a precursor. In the ACT section in English, you need to recognize these types of errors in various contexts. I`ll go through both the basic rules for pronouns and the most common errors you`ll see in the test so you can approach the test with confidence. A pronoun must match its name in both type and form.

For example, an object pronoun (me, you, us, she, she, he, her) must replace a noun that acts as a direct object. The same goes for subject pronouns, possessive droppings, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. The wrong sentence uses two different pronouns, while the corrected versions stick to one or the other. Since the genders of the students are not known, the pronoun “to be or they” should be used, because “everyone” is singular. We can see that all the pronouns in our response options are possessive pronouns. There are no contractions, so we will not use step 4 of the strategy. Not only the homemade sweet potato cake, but also the hand-picked flowers (plural noun) will win Briana`s heart with their thoughtfulness (plural pronouns). Since the subject of the sentence is singular – “person” – the pronoun referring to it must also be singular. This means that “she” is not appropriate, as it refers to more than one person. Here are nine pronoun precursor agreement rules. These rules refer to the rules found in the subject-verb correspondence.

As with any pronominal question, the first step is to determine the precursor. Since a precursor must be a name that appears in the text, our options are “Banneker,” “his studies,” and “the ways of the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies.” However, none of these names are one thing that can be used to predict a solar eclipse – the phrase tries to say that she used her trajectory calculations to make the prediction. .