Find the antecedent before you look at the choices
Every pronoun question has the same first step. The pronoun in the blank stands for some noun already in the sentence. Locate that noun, note whether it is singular or plural, and note what job the pronoun does in its own clause. Only then read the four options.
Three checks, in this order. (1) Which noun? — there must be exactly one candidate. (2) Singular or plural? — count the antecedent, never the nearest noun. (3) What job? — subject, object, or possessive inside the pronoun's own clause.
Bước hay bị bỏ nhất là bước một. Học sinh nhìn thẳng vào chỗ trống, thấy ngay trước đó có một danh từ số nhiều nên chọn their. Nhưng danh từ đứng gần chỗ trống thường nằm trong một cụm giới từ và không phải tiền ngữ. Tiền ngữ là danh từ mà đại từ thay thế về nghĩa, không phải danh từ gần nhất về khoảng cách.
Words that look plural and are not
each, each of, every, every one of, either, neither, one of, none of (formal), anyone, everyone, somebody, nobody
Each of the forty thousand specimens is singular. Neither of the two networks is singular. The plural noun sits inside a prepositional phrase and cannot control anything.
Each of the herbarium's forty thousand specimens carries a label recording the date and place ofcollection.
- their
- its
- it's
- there
The subject is Each, not specimens; the verb carries already confirms the singular. So the possessive must be singular too. (C) is the contraction it is, which cannot modify a noun, and (D) is an adverb. Answer (B).
its không bao giờ có dấu phẩy trên. it's luôn luôn là it is hoặc it has. Còn its' thì không tồn tại trong tiếng Anh. Đề rất hay xếp cả ba vào bốn phương án; hai trong ba phương án đó bị loại chỉ bằng luật chính tả, không cần đọc câu.
Neither the curator nor the two conservators believed thathad the authority to move the panel.
- he
- she
- they
- it
With neither… nor, agreement follows the element nearer the verb — here the two conservators, which is plural. Answer (C).
Case: subject, object, possessive
Subject: I, he, she, we, they, who. Object: me, him, her, us, them, whom. Possessive: my, his, her, our, their, whose.
A pronoun joined to a noun by and keeps whatever case it would have alone. Delete the noun and read again: The director asked me to review the agreement, therefore The director asked the assistant curator and me.
The -self forms are legal only when the same person appears twice in one clause (The curator taught herself Coptic) or for emphasis. They are never a polite substitute for me.
The engineerthe company later sued had warned about the joint three years earlier.
- who
- whom
- whose
- which
Inside the relative clause the subject is the company and the verb is sued; the engineer is what was sued, so the pronoun is an object. (C) would need a noun after it, and (D) cannot refer to a person. Answer (B).
Who versus whom when a clause is inserted
The hardest case items bury a short reporting clause — the committee believed, the records show, scholars assume — inside the relative clause. That inserted clause has its own subject and verb and must be ignored when the case is decided.
Cover the inserted clause with a finger. If a subject is still missing from the remaining verb, the answer is who. If the remaining verb already has its subject and something is missing after it, the answer is whom.
The composermanuscripts were destroyed in the 1945 bombing had kept no copies elsewhere.
- who's
- whose
- of whom
- which
Manuscripts needs an owner, so the slot takes the possessive relative. (A) is who is; (C) would have to follow the noun (the manuscripts of whom), not precede it. Answer (B).
Mẹo nhanh cho who / whom: thử thay bằng he và him trong mệnh đề quan hệ. Thay được bằng he thì dùng who; thay được bằng him thì dùng whom. Mệnh đề chen như the committee believed không tham gia phép thử này — che nó đi rồi mới thử.
Reference that fails: two antecedents or none
A pronoun can obey every agreement rule and still be wrong, because the reader cannot tell which noun it points to. When two nouns of the same number sit before the pronoun and either could fit, the sentence is defective and the correct answer names the noun outright.
When Faraday showed the new apparatus to Davy,recognized at once what the deflection of the needle meant.
- he
- Davy
- they
- him
He could be Faraday or Davy — the sentence gives no way to decide, so it fails whatever the writer intended. They makes two men into a joint subject the sentence never sets up, and him is an object form in a subject slot. Naming the person removes the ambiguity. Answer (B).
Đừng phản xạ “đại từ ngắn hơn nên gọn hơn”. Trong nhóm câu này, phương án lặp lại danh từ thường là đáp án, vì bốn phương án được dựng đúng để kiểm xem học sinh có nhận ra tình trạng chỉ vào hai chỗ hay không. Cách kiểm: chỉ tay vào từng danh từ trước đại từ và hỏi “đặt danh từ này vào chỗ đại từ, câu có đọc được không?”. Nếu hai danh từ đều lọt thì đại từ hỏng.
Comparison pronouns: that and those
When a sentence compares one thing with the same property of another thing, the second property is carried by that (singular) or those (plural), not by a personal pronoun and not by nothing at all.
The rock samples returned by Apollo 15 are older thancollected at the Apollo 11 site.
- that
- those
- them
- they
The comparison is samples against samples, so the slot needs a plural stand-in for the samples. (A) is singular. (C) and (D) would compare the samples with people or with the site itself. Answer (B).
The nebula is studied less forbrightness than for the near-perfect symmetry of its outflows.
- it's
- its
- its'
- their
The slot modifies brightness, so it takes a possessive determiner agreeing with the singular nebula. It's expands to it is, its' is not an English word, and their disagrees in number. Answer (B).
Ba lỗi chính tả trong nhóm này chiếm rất nhiều câu: its / it's, their / there / they're, whose / who's. Cả ba đều giải được bằng một thao tác duy nhất — bung dấu phẩy trên ra thành hai từ và đọc lại câu. The nebula is studied for it is brightness vô nghĩa, vậy là xong.