Sentence Correction

Stacey Koprince wrote:I received a PM asking me to comment on this question.

FYI: in future, it's very helpful if you type the question out rather than posting it as a JPG. When we reply, we can't see the JPG figure on the same page, so we have to keep going back and looking at the problem on a different web page - it takes a lot longer to answer that way.

For pronouns, we have to make sure that the noun match is both logically and structurally sensible.

When you have a structure like this one:
Once <noun subject> <verb> <object containing a noun>, <pronoun subject> <verb> <object>...

The structural expectation is that the subject of the first part will also be the subject of the second part - so the <noun subject> should match the <pronoun subject>. If that also makes logical sense (which it does in this case), then you're good, as long as there isn't another pronoun which makes both structural and logical sense. In other words, in this case, we're good.

In answer D, the <noun subject> is not actually the noun we want to match with the pronoun, so that's one problem. The other problem is that the noun to which we want to refer (Sun) is not a straight noun in the sentence; instead, it is a possessive noun (Sun's). We are only allowed to use possessive pronouns to refer to possessive nouns, but "it" is not a possessive pronoun.

For example:
Susie's dad wouldn't let her go to the game.
Logically, "her" should refer to Susie. But we've got the possessive pronoun "Susie's" in the sentence, and "her" is not a possessive pronoun in this case. The simplest way to check to see if it will work is to pick up the noun to which the pronoun is apparently referring and try to place it in the sentence where the pronoun is currently. Eg:
Susie's dad wouldn't let Susie's go to the game.
That doesn't work, obviously, so the structure is wrong.

Try this one:
Susie's dad didn't like her friend.
replace the pronoun with the possessive noun:
Susie's dad didn't like Susie's friend.
That one's okay.

Stacey Koprince wrote:I received a PM asking me to comment on this question.

FYI: in future, it's very helpful if you type the question out rather than posting it as a JPG. When we reply, we can't see the JPG figure on the same page, so we have to keep going back and looking at the problem on a different web page - it takes a lot longer to answer that way.

For pronouns, we have to make sure that the noun match is both logically and structurally sensible.

When you have a structure like this one:
Once <noun subject> <verb> <object containing a noun>, <pronoun subject> <verb> <object>...

The structural expectation is that the subject of the first part will also be the subject of the second part - so the <noun subject> should match the <pronoun subject>. If that also makes logical sense (which it does in this case), then you're good, as long as there isn't another pronoun which makes both structural and logical sense. In other words, in this case, we're good.

In answer D, the <noun subject> is not actually the noun we want to match with the pronoun, so that's one problem. The other problem is that the noun to which we want to refer (Sun) is not a straight noun in the sentence; instead, it is a possessive noun (Sun's). We are only allowed to use possessive pronouns to refer to possessive nouns, but "it" is not a possessive pronoun.

For example:
Susie's dad wouldn't let her go to the game.
Logically, "her" should refer to Susie. But we've got the possessive pronoun "Susie's" in the sentence, and "her" is not a possessive pronoun in this case. The simplest way to check to see if it will work is to pick up the noun to which the pronoun is apparently referring and try to place it in the sentence where the pronoun is currently. Eg:
Susie's dad wouldn't let Susie's go to the game.
That doesn't work, obviously, so the structure is wrong.

Try this one:
Susie's dad didn't like her friend.
replace the pronoun with the possessive noun:
Susie's dad didn't like Susie's friend.
That one's okay.

Stacey Koprince wrote:Just to clarify: this holds when you have a pronoun subject in the 2nd clause, not just any old pronoun at all. Also, it doesn't mean that you MUST refer to the noun subject of the first clause - it just means that you woudl most often expect it to structurally, so if that noun subject is an actual match in terms of singular or plural, then you have to consider that noun subject a possible antecedent. If there's another, logical match in the sentence, then you have ambiguity (ie, more than one noun that could be the antecedent, either logically or structurally) and that's a problem.

In the example you've given, "they" is not a problem. Logically it refers to "consumers." Structurally, it would refer to "price," which is not plural... so "they" is not a candidate to refer to "price." No ambiguity is created (there's only one noun that matches in terms of number), so it's fine.

I did a search to see if I could find the source of the problem. I didn't get a definitive answer but it seemed to come from the 1000 SC sets. I also found another site which claimed the official answer was D, not C.

1000SC has many good questions, but it also has some downright bad ones, including problems on which the right answer has errors in it, and the official answer is wrong. It is a mix of old paper and pencil questions and apparently either bad questions from other sources, or errors introduced into good questions via transcription. The problem is: you don't know which ones are good and which are bad,