On this episode of Terri’s Tips, Terri Karol of Prepped & Polished shows you two pronoun agreement errors.
1. Pronoun Antecedent Agreement Errors
2. Ambiguous Pronoun Reference Errors
One of the English skills assessed on the ACT is the agreement between pronouns and their antecedents. Most students know that a pronoun takes the place of a noun, but there’s much more confusion surrounding antecedents. So, let me clear that up for you.
1. Pronoun Antecedent Agreement Errors
The antecedent of a pronoun is the noun that the pronoun refers to or substitutes for. Here’s the golden rule: when the pronoun does not agree in gender or number with its antecedent, there’s an agreement error. So you have to make pronouns and antecedents agree.
2. Ambiguous Pronoun Reference Errors
Ambiguous pronoun reference occurs when the pronoun could refer to multiple antecedents. You have to make the reference clear. You can avoid confusion and multiple meanings by making that sentence more clear.
Now, you know these two common errors that you can avoid on the ACT English test. Armed with that knowledge, you can also avoid making those very same pronoun agreement errors on the ACT writing test and beyond.
What was your biggest takeaway from this podcast? Do you have any questions for Terri and Alexis Avila?
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