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Grammar is, of course, an issue of concern on the Sentence Correction questions seen on the GMAT.\u00a0 But good grammar is also generally helpful and is of special importance on the writing sample, which is your chance to show the admissions committee that you are adept at communicating in written English.\u00a0 To improve your writing in general, sometimes it\u2019s worthwhile to explore concepts in grammar that are only infrequently tested on the Verbal portion of the test.<\/p>\n
One example of this kind of grammar issue is the possessive pronoun.\u00a0 Possessive pronouns are similar to their non-possessive cousins, regular pronouns.\u00a0 Both must have a clear antecedent, and both must agree with that antecedent in gender and in number.\u00a0 There are a few tricky rules that come into play with possessive pronouns that you don\u2019t see elsewhere, however.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 No apostrophes needed<\/strong><\/p>\n When turning a regular singular noun into a possessive noun, one usually uses an apostrophe followed by an \u201cs\u201d.\u00a0 An example would be \u201cthe librarian\u2019s book.\u201d\u00a0 However, if we replace \u201cthe librarian\u2019s\u201d with a possessive pronoun, it would say \u201chis book\u201d or \u201cher book,\u201d no apostrophe needed. \u00a0People often become particularly confused by the possessive form of one specific pronoun: it.\u00a0 The rule here is that \u201cit\u201d is followed by an apostrophe and an \u201cs\u201d only<\/em> to indicate the contraction of \u201cit is.\u201d\u00a0 The possessive form of the pronoun is \u201cits.\u201d<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Possessive pronouns typically function as adjectives<\/strong><\/p>\n A possessive pronoun is used to describe a noun, as in the examples seen above.\u00a0 The location of the adjective in the sentence can determine its form in some cases: one would speak of \u201cher<\/em> book,\u201d but a descriptive sentence would say that \u201cthe book is hers<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 The same holds true for \u201ctheir\u201d and \u201ctheirs,\u201d \u201cyour\u201d and \u201cyours,\u201d and \u201cour\u201d and \u201cours.\u201d\u00a0 The possessive pronoun \u201cmy\u201d changes form more dramatically; \u201cmy<\/em> book\u201d becomes \u201cthe book is mine<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Relative pronouns can also be possessive<\/strong><\/p>\n Relative pronouns that we often use in the nominative case (who, whoever) or in the objective case (whom, whomever) also have a possessive case: \u201cwhose\u201d and \u201cwhoever\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhoever\u2019s\u201d is an exception to the \u201cno apostrophes\u201d rule, but you shouldn\u2019t worry too much about it as it is rarely tested on the GMAT.<\/p>\n Example<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n A plan is being considered to cut costs by limiting the number of shrimp ingested by the flamingos at the zoo; one concern is that visitors may not be as interested in seeing the flamingos if their feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n A.\u00a0 that visitors may not be as interested in seeing the flamingos if their feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/em><\/p>\n B.\u00a0 that visitors may not be as interested in seeing one once their feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/em><\/p>\n C.\u00a0 that visitors may not be as interested in seeing the flamingos if the birds\u2019 feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/em><\/p>\n D.\u00a0 which visitors may not be as interested in seeing the flamingos if the birds\u2019 feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/em><\/p>\n E.\u00a0 which visitors may not be as interested in seeing one once the birds\u2019 feathers aren\u2019t as vividly pink<\/em><\/p>\n In the original sentence, the possessive pronoun \u201ctheir\u201d is used; however, this pronoun has no clear antecedent, since there are two plural nouns in the sentence.\u00a0 Although common sense tells us that \u201ctheir\u201d refers back to the flamingos, grammatically speaking, it could also refer to the visitors.\u00a0 Therefore, the correct version of the sentence must clarify the possessors of the feathers.\u00a0 That allows us to rule out both A and B.\u00a0 \u201cWhich\u201d versus \u201cthat\u201d is another frequently tested issue, and here the correct choice is \u201cthat,\u201d allowing us to rule out choices D and E.\u00a0 \u201cWhich\u201d in D and E would change the meaning of the sentence.\u00a0 The remaining choice, C, correctly uses \u201cthat\u201d and also replaces \u201ctheir\u201d with \u201cthe birds\u2019,\u201d which clarifies the sentence\u2019s meaning.\u00a0 While this choice is longer than some of the others, it is the only one to fix the possessive pronoun error without creating a new error.<\/p>\n Overall, possessive pronouns should be handled much the same way as the nominative and objective pronouns: check for agreement, and make sure that there is a clear antecedent in the sentence.\u00a0 The less-common issues associated with possessive pronouns are rarely tested in sentence corrections, so a brief review of apostrophe placement and forms should be sufficient to help polish your writing sample.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grammar is, of course, an issue of concern on the Sentence Correction questions seen on the GMAT.\u00a0 But good grammar is also generally helpful and is of special importance on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2059,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/2059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}