Pronouns

Improving Sentences

Part or all of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.  

Read the original sentence to yourself, listening for errors.  Check the underlined portion of the sentence against the Big 8 Grammar Rules.  Focus on the first error that you find, and look to see which answer choice fixes the problem.

The modern recreational canoe closely resembles the Native American bark canoe in shape, length, weight, and carrying capacity, differing only in the materials of which they are made.

When there is a pronoun in an underlined portion of the sentence, you must check to make sure that it agrees with its antecedent.  Look at the pronoun “they.”  The word “they” is plural, but is there a plural antecedent for this word?  No.  The antecedent for the pronoun is “modern recreational canoe,” which is singular.  Instead of “they” this sentence requires “it.”  Mark that change, then notice that you now have “it are.”  These two words do not match, so change them to “it is.”  You are ready to look down at your answer choices.

(A) they are made

(B) they make them

(C) they made it

(D) it is made

(E) its making

The correct answer is (D).

On sat.collegeboard.org, 67% of the responses were correct.

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