Pronoun Strategies

By Abhishek Tomar on Aug 22, 2009 with Comments 0

Pronouns Poison

GMAT plays with the possessive form of the words in the sentence correction to make thing difficult in the examination. When you are busy looking for the above error, GMAT quality uses the pronoun possessive form to make the sentences correct.

Example

David’s room is so messy that HIS mother calls HIM a pig.

Now you ca see that David’s is the possessive form of noun hence it .would be needing a possessive form of the nouns. Thus the possessive form of pronoun in the sentences is HIS that refers back to DAVID’s. However thing to remember is that subject and object pronoun may not refer back to the possessive nouns. So the word HIS is incorrectly used as it does not refers back to the possessive form of the noun DAVID’s. The word HIM would have been correct if HIM has been used with DAVID.

Here are some of the change in the sentence to make the incorrect sentence correct. Look closely

DAVID’s room is so messy that his mother call DAVID a pig

Remember deadly 4: It, It’s, They, Their

The most and the common mistake GMAT makes in the sentence correction id mixing the common pronoun with the possessive form OR using the possessive form of the word where it is not needed. Like use IT’S in place of IT or uses THEIR in place of THEY. Here IT’s is the possessive form of IT and Their is the possessive form of THEY. When ever you see any of these words you should stop and think again about the correct sentences

Common Mistake

THEIR is the plural form of the THEY hence it should be used in the plural form of the sentences. Unfortunately THEIR is used in singular form in our day to day life, which is wrong.

Incorrect: When the person calls take down THEIR information

Correct : When the person calls take down HIS information OR

Correct; When the people calls take down THEIR information.

In the above sentence thing to note is that PERSON is in the singular and THEIR is in the plural form so to correct it we have two option. One either change the pronoun part to singular as done in the first correct sentence. or we can change the subject in plural form to make both the part plural as done in second sentence.

Incorrect: Everyone here will need THEIR own pencil.

Correct: Everyone here will need HIS own pencil.

If you have read our previous chapter you would have know that EVERYONE is a singular form and THEIR is the plural form. So what we did was, we changed the plural part to singular form in the second correct sentence.