Pronoun-antecedent agreement

The ACT loves quizzing students on pronoun-antecedents. We’re positive there’s never been an ACT English test written without at least a couple of pronoun-antecedent questions.

So, let’s get a few more points!

Antecedent simply means the word to which a pronoun refers, or in other words, the word that a pronoun replaces.

Pronoun review and antecedent example

Recall that a pronoun takes the place of a noun.

If we said “My dog Spot chased his tail for over half an hour,” after processing the desire to get Spot some water and a nap, we would notice the pronoun replaces the word “Spot.”

Without pronouns, we would have to say “Spot chased Spot’s tail for over half an hour." This could get really annoying, especially if there is more than one reference to the same noun. So in this case, “Spot” is our antecedent because “Spot” is the word that the pronoun “his” is referring to, or is replacing.

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 to have a clear antecedent, preferably within the same sentence as the pronoun. If the pronoun’s antecedent could be more than one thing OR if it hasn’t been stated in a few sentences, we need to not use the pronoun at all, but just name the antecedent.

Example

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

First, we want to identify the pronoun. In this case, of course, it’s “her.” So, what’s the antecedent? Herein lies the problem. What kind of notes are we looking at? Medical ones or engineering ones?

We don’t know.

We have an unclear antecedent because we don’t know if “her” refers to the engineer or the doctor. There’s nothing in the sentence to indicate which we’re referring to. The fix is to simply restate the antecedent and not use the pronoun:

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

This will sometimes appear to break the concise rule, and so students will often not choose this option, feeling that it is too wordy or awkward. It doesn’t “sound right.” However, regardless if it sounds right, if the antecedent is unclear for any reason, choose to 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!

Let’s look at the pronouns in this example.

There are three of them. Do you know what they are?

(spoiler)

First, we have my. This one has such a strong implied antecedent (the speaker), we need not be concerned about naming this one.

We also have they. What’s the antecedent? The teachers? The principal? The upper administration, such as the superintendent? Maybe it was a community decision, pressed on the school board. We don’t know. This is an unclear antecedent.

Thirdly, us is similarly unclear, although it seems likely that it is talking about students (the ones doing the homework).

Ideally, we 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 we have clarified both “they” and “us,” and the ACT points are ours.

The other half of the equation is to use the right pronoun for the antecedent.

This is almost entirely related to whether the antecedent is singular or plural. If the ACT points out a singular antecedent, it’s going to want you to use the singular pronoun. If the antecedent is plural—you guessed it—use the plural pronoun.

Be careful! The ACT is really good at camouflaging the antecedent. This makes the right answer “sound” wrong. It’s very similar to the subject-verb agreement questions in that way.

Collective nouns and pronouns

Collective nouns and pronouns are treated as singular. A collective noun is a word that represents multiple people, like group, team, jury, crowd, board (as in a board of directors), etc. These are singular as far as subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement. Most if not all of the pronoun-antecedent agreement questions on the ACT will abuse 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 pretty common example of what you’ll see. Let’s go through the steps:

What’s the pronoun?

Well, as is, it’s the underlined word “their.” But we’re not sure if that’s the right one yet.

What’s the antecedent?

It looks like it refers to the word “crowd” since it’s the “crowd” that is apparently making its way behind the parade.

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

Treat “crowd” as singular, since it is singular (it’s “crowd” after all, not “crowds”).

Choose the appropriate singular pronoun.

Answer: C. We want “its” instead of “their,” since “it” is the singular pronoun for the singular antecedent. Obviously “it’s” is not right since that is “it is.”

Now you try. Remember to go through the steps:

Identify the pronoun.
Identify the antecedent.
Apply the collective noun rule if the antecedent is a collective noun.
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?

(spoiler)

Answer: C. his

Key points

Remember to go through the steps:

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