By These days, pronouns are kind of a hot topic. We hear a lot about personal pronouns and their relation to gender identity, but on the SAT, pronouns are simply placeholders for nouns, and nothing more. They help with the flow of our language and make it much more pleasant to read and speak. You wouldn’t say:
Bilbo is the best! I love reading about Bilbo’s adventures because Bilbo is my favorite hobbit. Bilbo is way better than Frodo. Frodo is a weak little baby and Frodo is nothing without Sam.
Bilbo doesn’t even feel like a real name anymore we said it so much. The whole point of pronouns is to add some flow and language variety to make the writing more complex and conversational rather than weird cavemen speak.
Bilbo is the best! I love reading about his adventures because he’s my favorite hobbit. Bilbo is way better than Frodo. Frodo is a weak little baby, and he’s nothing without Sam.
These pronoun example sentences not only express a very valid opinion, but they also flow way better than our first sentence and make it more pleasant to read or speak. Variance in language is important if you want to be a top-notch writer.
How to Use Pronouns Correctly on SAT Writing
The key to using pronouns correctly on the SAT is to make sure they match their noun’s gender and number. For example, if your noun is plural your pronoun must also be plural. Easy enough, but let’s look at an example using regular nouns rather than proper nouns to make sure we fully get the basics:
Pancakes are delicious if you put syrup on it.
In this sentence, pancakes is plural, but it implies singularity, so it sounds a little off. Easy to fix though, you can change it to them to make your pronoun match with its plural noun, the pancakes. There is more than one pancake, so it gets upgraded to them.
Ensuring your pronouns match in gender is where it gets more complicated. Luckily, the SAT seems to be moving away from testing for misgendered pronouns on the test because of growing awareness for gender identity as a choice.
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One of the biggest issues with the English language is the lack of an official gender-neutral pronoun when referring to a single person. While most people will use “they”, it is technically grammatically incorrect because “they” is actually plural. However, with times-a-changing, we predict the SAT will move away from testing this particular pronoun rule in this context. You may still see questions testing gender agreement in pronouns, but it won’t be ambiguous when it comes to the correct gender of the noun in question.
Leslie is a strong, independent woman; she deserves her place in City Hall.
The addition of “woman” in this sentence gives us context clues that the pronoun should be “she”. You wouldn’t use “they” instead, because it is established that Leslie is a woman, and we are only talking about one woman right now.
Leslie and Anne are best friends, they’ve been through so much together.
Now that we’ve added an extra lady to talk about, “they” is an appropriate pronoun. There is more than one person, so the correct pronoun must be plural.
It also has to be clear about which noun the pronoun is replacing, or your sentence will lack critical clarity. If you’re talking about more than one person and you have a bunch of pronouns following their introduction, how do we know which pronoun goes with which noun? Sometimes extra clarity is necessary when messing around with pronouns on the SAT so the reader knows which pronoun replaces which noun and the meaning of the sentence is clear.
Winston and Ferguson are adorable, I can tell he loves him so much.
It’s not clear which he or him goes with Winston and which goes with Ferguson, so this sentence would be incorrect due to lack of clarity. You must make sure it’s clear which “he” you’re referring to while using pronouns on the SAT.
Remember, the SAT loves clear, concise writing, so do your best to simplify your sentences as much as possible, while still being grammatically correct (no matter what Kevin Malone tells you).
Types of Pronouns
There are a few different types of pronouns you can use, let’s break them down here with some example sentences:
Possessive pronouns – Express ownership. (i.e., yours, mine, hers, his, ours, theirs)
This car is ours.
Personal pronouns – used to refer to people (i.e., you, she, he, I, we, it, they)
Josh says hi, he couldn’t make it.
Relative pronouns – Used to connect a dependent clause to an independent clause. (i.e., who, whom, which, that, what)
Amanda bought a new hat, which is way too small.
Intensive pronouns – add emphasis by referring back to the subject. (i.e., Yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, myself)
The dinner was made by the head chef, himself.
Indefinite pronouns – doesn’t specifically identify the subject. (i.e., some, somebody, anyone, anywhere, nothing, everybody)
Does anybody have an extra pencil?
Demonstrative pronouns – used to point to specific things. (i.e., this, these, that, those)
That is the ugliest skirt I have ever seen.
Interrogative pronouns – Used to ask questions. (i.e., who, what, which, whose, whom)
Who wants to go to the park?
Common Pronoun Mistakes
By avoiding these super common pronoun mistakes on the SAT, you’re going to ace the writing section, no problem!
- Using a plural pronoun for a singular noun, or vice versa.
Make sure the number of your pronoun matches the number of the noun it’s replacing.
Mary is doing the best she can.
NOT
Mary is doing the best they can.
There is only one Mary.
- Lack of clarity due to too many pronouns
Jeff wants to order from Jack, but he is on his lunch break.
Is Jeff on his lunch break, or is Jack?
Jeff wants to order from Jack, but Jack is on his lunch break.
Sometimes removing a pronoun for clarity is the best move you can make.
- Using the wrong gendered pronoun
That man has a bird perched on his head, I wonder if she is feeding it.
It’s clearly stated that we’re talking about a man, so “she” is not the appropriate pronoun to use in this case. Within English grammar rules, personal pronouns are stuck in the gender norms for now.
Pronouns are a hot topic that are frequently misunderstood. If you google “pronouns,” the first results you see will be related to gender identity, meaning many people think pronouns, in general, have to do with gender identification. Next time someone says, “I don’t believe in pronouns” you can laugh because they’re saying they don’t believe in a part of speech that is used to replace a noun, and that’s pretty silly. Everyone has pronouns regardless of their gender identity.
Final Pronoun Thoughts
Pronouns on the SAT are pretty simple if you just follow the basic rules of agreement: gender, number, and clarity. Make sure the pronouns you choose in your writing simplify your sentences and make them flow. Pronouns should never complicate the meaning of the sentence, they are just meant to be a placeholder for nouns so you can spice it up and not use the noun you’re referencing each time it comes up in your writing. That sounds weird and makes your writing harder to read.
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