Examkin

Question

Difficulty: HardPronoun Clarity and Reference

During the restoration of the Renaissance chapel, the conservators carefully removed the tarnished silver candlesticks from the wooden altarpieces. Because they were highly sensitive to humidity, the team decided to store the items in a climate-controlled vault. This precaution was necessary to prevent further environmental degradation of the historic artifacts.

Which choice most clearly and precisely identifies the subject that was highly sensitive to humidity?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. the candlesticksAnswer
  3. C
    them
  4. D
    the candlesticks, which were tarnished,

Answer

the candlesticks
The correct option resolves the pronoun clarity issue by replacing the ambiguous pronoun with the specific noun phrase. This clarifies that it was the candlesticks, and not the altarpieces, that were sensitive to humidity.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the underlined pronoun to determine if it has a clear, unambiguous antecedent.
The pronoun is the plural subject pronoun, which refers back to a noun in the preceding sentence. However, that sentence contains two plural nouns: the candlesticks and the altarpieces. It is unclear which noun the pronoun is meant to replace.
Establishing a clear link between a pronoun and its antecedent is essential for grammatical clarity.
2
Evaluate the choices to see which one resolves this ambiguity without introducing new grammatical errors or redundancy.
Replacing the pronoun with the specific noun phrase resolves the ambiguity. Other choices either retain the grammatical case error or introduce unnecessary redundancy.
The correct choice must be both grammatically correct and stylistically concise.

Key Concept

Pronoun clarity and reference errors occur when a pronoun could refer to more than one noun (ambiguity), or when it refers to a noun that is not present or is too far away (vague reference). Correcting these errors typically requires replacing the ambiguous pronoun with a specific noun or noun phrase.
Estimated Time:45s
Rate this question

Topics

Pronoun Clarity and Reference

More questions from this topic