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Difficulty: MediumPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

In standard formal English, identifying the true grammatical antecedent is essential for proper pronoun agreement. Which pronoun correctly completes the sentence below?

"Each of the female officers who completed the rigorous training program was asked to submit _____ official report directly to the commissioner."

  1. herAnswer
  2. B
    their
  3. C
    theirs
  4. D
    hers

Answer

The pronoun that correctly completes the sentence is 'her'.
The sentence has as its subject the singular indefinite pronoun 'Each'. In formal English, 'Each' requires a singular pronoun for agreement. Since the text specifies that the officers are female, the singular possessive pronoun 'her' is required to modify 'official report'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the true grammatical antecedent of the missing pronoun.
The antecedent is the singular indefinite pronoun 'Each', which is the head subject of the sentence.
Prepositional phrases like 'of the female officers' modify the head noun but do not change its singular number.
2
Determine the required grammatical function of the pronoun.
The pronoun modifies the noun phrase 'official report', requiring a singular possessive determiner.
Because the antecedent explicitly refers to 'female officers', the feminine singular form 'her' must be selected.
3
Evaluate the choices against agreement and syntactic rules.
'her' fulfills both singular agreement with 'Each' and the required syntactic position of possessive determiner.
'their' incorrectly agrees with the plural object 'officers', while 'hers' and 'theirs' are absolute possessive pronouns.

Key Concept

Singular Indefinite Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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