Pronoun-antecedent agreement

The ACT loves to quiz students on pronoun-antecedent questions. It’s hard to find an ACT English test that doesn’t include at least a couple.

So let’s pick up a few more points.

Antecedent means the word a pronoun refers to - in other words, the word the pronoun replaces.

Pronoun review and antecedent example

A pronoun takes the place of a noun.

If we said, “My dog Spot chased his tail for over half an hour,” you can see that the pronoun replaces the word “Spot.”

Without pronouns, we’d have to say, “Spot chased Spot’s tail for over half an hour.” That gets annoying fast, especially when the same noun appears multiple times. In this sentence, “Spot” is the antecedent because “Spot” is the word the pronoun “his” refers to (and replaces).

There are two ways the ACT will try to confuse you with pronouns and antecedents: pronoun-antecedent agreement and unclear antecedents.

Unclear antecedents

Every pronoun needs a clear antecedent, preferably in the same sentence as the pronoun. If the pronoun could refer to more than one noun, or if the antecedent hasn’t been stated in the last few sentences, don’t use the pronoun. Instead, name the antecedent directly.

Example

The engineer and the doctor worked together from her notes to create an advanced prosthetic.

First, identify the pronoun. Here, it’s “her.” Now ask: what is the antecedent? That’s the problem.

Whose notes are these - medical notes or engineering notes?

We don’t know.

The antecedent is unclear because “her” could refer to either the engineer or the doctor. Nothing in the sentence tells you which one. The fix is to restate the antecedent instead of using the pronoun:

The engineer and the doctor worked together from the engineer’s notes to create an advanced prosthetic.

This can seem to break the concise rule, so students often avoid it because it feels wordy or awkward. But on the ACT, clarity matters more than sounding smooth. If the antecedent is unclear for any reason, avoid the pronoun.

Example

Here’s another example:

At my high school they expect us to do one to three hours of homework per night!

Look at the pronouns in this sentence.

There are three. Do you know what they are?

Ideally, you would fix it like this:

At my high school, the principal expects AP students to do one to three hours of homework per night!

Now both “they” and “us” have been clarified, and the ACT points are yours.

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

The other half of the equation is choosing the correct pronoun for the antecedent.

This is mostly about singular vs. plural. If the antecedent is singular, the pronoun must be singular. If the antecedent is plural, the pronoun must be plural.

Be careful: the ACT is good at camouflaging the antecedent, which can make the correct answer “sound” wrong. This is similar to subject-verb agreement questions.

Collective nouns and pronouns

Collective nouns are treated as singular. A collective noun represents multiple people as one unit, such as group, team, jury, crowd, board (as in a board of directors), etc. These are singular for both subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement. Many ACT pronoun-antecedent agreement questions rely on this.

Let’s look at some examples.

Examples

The bustling crowd made their way down Main Street behind the parade.

A. NO CHANGE
B. there
C. its
D. it’s

This is a common ACT setup. Work through it step by step:

1. What’s the pronoun?

As written, it’s the underlined word “their,” but you still need to check whether it matches the antecedent.

2. What’s the antecedent?

The pronoun refers to “crowd,” since the crowd is the thing making its way down the street.

3. Apply the collective noun rule, since the antecedent “crowd” is a collective noun.

Treat “crowd” as singular.

4. Choose the appropriate singular pronoun.

Answer: C. “its.” You want “its” instead of “their” because “it/its” is singular. “It’s” is incorrect because it means “it is.”

Now you try. Remember to go through the steps:

1. Identify the pronoun.
2. Identify the antecedent.
3. Apply the collective noun rule if the antecedent is a collective noun.
4. Choose the appropriate pronoun for whether the antecedent is singular or plural.

The dignitary representing several of the countries attending the series of conventions couldn’t find their place at the table.

A. NO CHANGE
B. its
C. his
D. there

Do you know the answer?

Key points

Remember to go through the steps:

1. Identify the pronoun.
2. Identify the antecedent.
3. Apply the collective noun rule if the antecedent is a collective noun.
4. Choose the appropriate pronoun for whether the antecedent is singular or plural.