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ACT English 4.3 Grammar and Usage 270 Views


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ACT English: Grammar and Usage Drill 4, Problem 3. Which choice contains the correct pronoun for this sentence?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by baby blankets. If you think those blankets

00:09

are cute now, just wait until they grow up.

00:12

How would you correct the following sentence, if it needs correcting at all?

00:15

The nursing staff welcomed me, thanked me for volunteering, and asked me to start folding

00:21

baby blankets and placing it in the appropriate drawer.

00:33

Looks like we're going to have more fun identifying subjects and objects with this question.

00:37

Hey, don't judge the things that bring us joy.

00:41

In the last clause, the speaker is the subject, because he or she is the one doing something.

00:46

The verbs are "folding" and "placing" because that's what the speaker is doing.

00:50

And the "baby blankets" take the object position because they're the things getting folded

00:55

and placed.

00:56

This makes "it" the object pronoun, since it's standing in for baby blankets.

01:02

Unfortunately, "it" is doing a very bad job of being an object pronoun.

01:06

"Baby blankets" is plural, so the pronoun ought to be as well.

01:10

"It" is singular, therefore we can cross off choice (A), which is under the mistaken impression

01:15

that the original sentence is OK.

01:18

Knowing that the correct answer has to be an object makes choice (D) easy to eliminate as well.

01:23

"They" is a subject pronoun, and no matter how hard it tries it'll never pass for an

01:27

object. Choice (B) doesn't make the cut either.

01:30

"These" is usually used to distinguish between two nearby objects.

01:34

It's true that the speaker must've been near the blankets at some point, since he or she

01:38

folded them--unless the speaker has telekinetic powers.

01:44

However, the speaker is talking about his or her big baby blanket adventure in the past

01:49

tense, so we can assume that the speaker's not up to his of her elbows in them currently.

01:54

Choice (C) nails it, because "them" is plural and an object pronoun.

01:59

Painful admission: our Mom made us throw away our baby blanket. And we still resent her for it.

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