Sentence Correction Strategy - Pronoun error

Preparation Strategy

The 8 Major Errors Of GMAT English


 

Spotting bad sentences is the key to doing well on sentence structure test questions.


 

  1. Pronoun error

There are 3 main types of pronoun errors encountered in GMAT.

  • Plural and Singular

    Once you start with one, you need to stay in the same quantity (singular or plural).


     

    Singular Pronouns (Memorize these)

    Hint: Do you see the categories I setup? It's SANE to memorize this

    Some---

    Any—

    No—

    Every—


     

Everyone

Everybody

Everything 

Someone

Somebody

Something 

Either

Neither 

One

Each 

Anyone

Anybody

Anything 

No one

Nothing

Nobody 

Whoever

Whomever 

His 

    

Be aware that group, jury, team, country, family are singular. Society today uses them sometimes as plural. This is because these act as a single unit when they do something.

    

Plural Pronouns (Memorize these)    

Both 

Their 

Many 

Several 

Few

Others 

   


 

Singular and Plural Pronouns – depends on whether the noun is singular or plural (Memorize these)    


 

Some 

More 

Most 

All 


 



 

The plural and singular clause error

When two nouns are in the sentence doing an action together but they are linked with

  • Along with
  • Together with
  • With
  • As well as
  • In addition to
  • Accompanied by


 

this does not make the following action they do plural. Only "and" can take the two singulars and make their action plural.

For example

Janie, with her poodle limping behind her, walks to the dog park.

Explanation: Janie is singular. The poodle is singular. They both do the action together, but the use of "with" means that we need to keep the verb singular. "Walks" is singular and "Walk" is plural.

Remember, a verb that ends with an –s is singular.


 

  • Pronoun reference error- referring pronoun is not correctly placed.

    For example:

    In the sentence "Samantha and Jane went shopping, but she couldn't find anything she liked.", the pronoun "she" does not refer to a person unambiguously. It is difficult to understand that whether "she" is referring to Samantha or Jane.

    The correct form would be "Samantha and Jane went shopping, but Samanatha couldn't find anything she liked."


     

  • Relative pronouns are often used incorrectly today.
    • Referring to things or animals – that, which
    • Referring to people—who, whom
    • Theybe careful that you don't use this unless you're positive there is a referring noun. Today we often use "they" to replace the use of a proper noun which it is not. It's a Pronoun.


       

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