- This is a two-parter in which we're going to focus on pronouns and antecedents. Pronoun questions are all about whether the reference is clear and grammatically correct. So, let's dig a little deeper into what the SAT actually tests.

So, when you see pronouns changing in the answer choices, you should be primed to check the following. Does the pronoun have a clear antecedent? Does it agree in number with the noun or places? If you need a possessive, is it in the correct form? And you might also be tested on whether the case is correct for the structure of the sentence.

That's it. Nothing too fancy. Let's take a look at the first item on the list: clear antecedents. An antecedent is the name for the noun that a pronoun refers to. It'll make more sense to see an antecedent in an example, like this one.

In this sentence, the "students" is the antecedent that the pronoun "they" refers back to. That's it. For the purposes of the SAT, every pronoun must clearly point to a noun. It has to have a clear antecedent.

If you cannot clearly identify the pronoun or the antecedent, then you've likely identified what that question is testing. Curious about what lack of clarity looks like? Here you go. Consider this sentence.

"When Maria texted Jenna, she was upset." Can you confidently answer who was upset? To do so, we have to be 100% certain about who does she refer to. Is it Maria or is it Jenna? Are you sure? Ultimately, because of the structure of this sentence, we don't know, so we have an unclear antecedent.

We can argue that Maria was upset when she texted Jenna, and we can also argue that when Maria texted Jenna, Jenna was the one who was upset. If a pronoun could refer to two nouns, the SAT will consider that unclear. And your job will be to restore clarity to the sentence.

That will most likely require you to choose an answer choice with a noun, not a pronoun, because the only way to fix a clarity issue like this is to remove any chance for confusion. For example, in our sentence on the screen, we have to name the person who was upset to fix clarity.

If we just stick Maria there, we're all good. We could have also chosen Jenna, but Maria is the one who is upset. One last thing when it comes to lack of clarity, watch out for "it," "they," and "this." It can be easy to overlook that they aren't connected to a clear antecedent, especially when they begin or appear late in a sentence.

Now, while clarity is good to have on your radar, it's not nearly as important as this next topic: pronoun agreement. The SAT loves testing agreement, whether it be subject verb or noun, or our friend here, pronoun.

Here's what you need to look for. If you have a singular noun, you need a singular pronoun. The car, a singular thing, agrees with the pronoun "it." If you have a plural noun, you need a plural pronoun, "the cats." A plural thing, agrees with any of those plural pronouns depending on the context of the sentence, of course.

Something to note, and this is important. They/them can absolutely refer to a singular person in the real world, but that's not true and won't be tested on the SAT. On the SAT, they and them are firmly in plural category. Let's check out an easy level practice question.

This is pretty similar to what you'd see on an easy question in the first verbal section. If you want to try it out, pause, solve, and resume the lesson when you are ready. All right. A glance at the answer choices primes us to be tested on pronouns.

So, let's see what the pronoun refers to. That first sentence is just the setup. And after, for example, we have one center reported higher enrollment after staff members were instructed to ask visitors whether blank wanted to register for a class.

Well, since the blank is referring to the group that might want to register for a class at the center, it has to be referring to the visitors, a plural noun, which requires a plural pronoun. Our answer is they. The rest of those answer choices are singular and do not agree with the antecedent visitors.

Well, answer C, you, can technically be singular or plural depending on the context, but the context does not support using "you" here. If you're up for it, try a slightly harder one. This one levels up the text complexity, so it would be considered a medium level question.

If you're game, pause, solve, and resume when ready. All right. We've clocked that pronouns are changing in the answers, so we're primed to be thinking about how the SAT tests pronouns. We need to figure out what our antecedent is.

We have heat in the Earth's outer core and how that's generated by radioactive decay. And then the contrast word, "but," which introduces the effect on that heat of shifting tectonic plates and pressure from surrounding rock layers. Those together cause blank to circulate in complex convection currents.

This part, after the blank, to circulate in complex convection currents, that's actually really helpful since there's only one noun mentioned earlier in the sentence that can circulate in complex convection currents. And that's the singular heat.

And if heat is the antecedent, the pronoun that refers back to heat must also be singular. If we look at our answer choices, we can see that the answer has to be A, "it." B is a subject case plural distractor for those that mistakenly think that the blank refers back to the plates and the layers.

C is an object case plural distractor for the plates and the layers. And D, introduces a plural demonstrative pronoun. A demonstrative pronoun is used to demonstrate something. Think of it as the written way of pointing at someone or something.

And that certainly doesn't work in the context of this sentence. And that's gonna do it for Part One of our pronoun journey. When you're ready, check out Part Two, which covers possessive pronouns and pronoun case.