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Difficulty: MediumPronoun-Antecedent Agreement

The panel of judicial experts, which had been assembled to review the controversial trial, was scheduled to announce their final ruling on Friday morning.

Which of the following options is the best replacement for the underlined portion?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. itsAnswer
  3. C
    it's
  4. D
    they're

Answer

The singular possessive pronoun 'its' is the correct replacement because it agrees in number with the singular collective noun antecedent 'panel'.
The singular possessive pronoun 'its' matches the singular collective noun antecedent 'panel'. Although the phrase 'of judicial experts' contains a plural noun directly preceding the pronoun, the pronoun must agree with the head of the noun phrase, which is the singular 'panel'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Locate the antecedent that the underlined pronoun refers to.
The pronoun refers to 'the panel of judicial experts'. The true antecedent is the collective noun 'panel', which acts as a singular unit in this context.
Pronouns must agree in number (singular vs. plural) with the nouns they replace.
2
Simplify the sentence by temporarily removing intervening clauses and prepositional phrases.
The simplified sentence reads: 'The panel... was scheduled to announce its/their final ruling.'
The plural noun 'experts' and the relative clause 'which had been assembled...' act as distractors that separate the true subject from the pronoun.
3
Determine the correct form of the singular possessive pronoun.
'its' is possessive and singular. The option 'it's' is a contraction of 'it is', and the options containing 'their' or 'they're' are plural.
Only 'its' maintains both the singular number agreement and the possessive case required to modify 'final ruling'.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Collective Nouns
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Topics

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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