anothermillenial wrote:
The problem with the singular "its" is that it doesn't refer to what you want it to. We want the "it" to refer to Montana. In this sentence, however,
Quote:
Montana's highways
is a possessive noun....and possessive nouns are adjectives. Antecedents cannot refer to an adjective.This piece of knowledge eliminates A, B, C, and E.
, you refer here to
the "poison pronoun" rule, in which a possessive noun may not be the antecedent of a pronoun.
Most of the time, that guideline will be true. Sometimes that
guideline will not hold.
This guideline is still taught as if it were 100% solid. It is not.
You would have no way of knowing that fact, so I address the matter in this post.
Sometimes a possessive noun can be the antecedent of both an object pronoun (her/him/it) and a subject pronoun (she/he/it).I have written two posts about this issue in which I lay out the guideline, its history, and its current standing.
GMAC signaled awhile ago that a possessive noun could be the antecedent of an object pronoun.
GMAC signaled three years ago, in
OG 2016, that a possessive noun could be the antecedent of a subject pronoun.
(In fact, GMAT had signaled the latter a decade ago, on a paper test.)
The poison pronoun rule is not a rule. It's a guideline.
Major and well-respected sources have not stayed abreast of the issue.
I wrote an overview of GMAC's evolution with respect to the pronoun/antecedent rule
iin this post.
I wrote an even more in-depth response about that same topic
in this post. The second post is more thorough.
I urge people to read the official questions to which I cite in those posts. (The second post has all the links.)
Those official questions contain a possessive noun that acts as the antecedent of a pronoun,
and the pronoun is not possessive.
That is, no controversy exists if a possessive pronoun such as
her has an antecedent that is also possessive, such as
Cecilia's:
Cecilia's book was not published because of
her procrastination.
But official questions have also used possessive nouns as antecedents for pronouns that are not possessive.I suspect that the Powerscore materials may not be updated.
The "poison pronoun" guideline will work in this instance. Occasionally, the guideline will not work.
I hope that helps.
_________________
To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people just exist.
—Oscar Wilde
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61% (00:58) correct 
