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Difficulty: MediumPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Fill in the blank with the grammatically correct pronoun that maintains proper pronoun-antecedent agreement in standard formal English.

Answer:Every member of the women's athletics team was required to present 【her】 official credentials before entering the stadium.

Answer

The correct pronoun to fill in the blank is 'her'.
The correct pronoun is 'her' because the antecedent 'Every member' is grammatically singular, and the qualifier 'women's athletics team' establishes a feminine context. In formal writing, singular antecedents demand singular possessive pronouns aligned with the specified gender.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the antecedent to which the pronoun in the blank refers.
The antecedent phrase is 'Every member of the women's athletics team'.
The pronoun must refer back to the subject noun phrase to establish correct ownership of the credentials.
2
Determine the grammatical number and gender of the antecedent.
The head noun 'member' modified by 'Every' is singular, and the prepositional phrase 'of the women's athletics team' specifies female gender.
Indefinite determiners like 'every' render the noun phrase grammatically singular, while 'women's' explicitly restricts the gender context to female.
3
Select the third-person possessive pronoun that agrees in both number and gender with the antecedent.
The singular feminine possessive pronoun is 'her'.
In standard formal English grammar, a singular feminine antecedent requires the singular feminine possessive pronoun 'her'.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement in Number and Gender
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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