<ol>
<li>Although the members of the wildlife biology team plan to study elephants in their natural habitat, they also want to observe the social behavior of elephants in zoo.</li>
</ol>
<p>The 'their' is kind of ambiguous because it could refer to both the members of the wildlife biology team AND the elephants? But this answer is correct. EXPLAIN. IN DETAIL.</p>
<ol>
<li>John G. Neihardt felt an obligation to bring the message of the Sioux holy man Black Elk to the larger world, having accomplished this in his book Black Elk Speaks.</li>
</ol>
<p>(D) world and eventually did it
(E) world, and he eventually did so</p>
<p>I chose D, but the answer key says E. What is E better than D? Apparently the 'it' is ambiguous.. But it refers to obligation... RIGHT?</p>
<p>PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ANSWERS LIKE 'BECAUSE IT SOUNDS GOOD' BECAUSE IT MEANS NOTHING TO ME</p>
<ol>
<li>John G. Neihardt felt an obligation to bring the message of the Sioux holy man Black Elk to the larger [world, having accomplished this in his book Black Elk Speaks.]</li>
</ol>
<p>(D) world and eventually did it
(E) world, and he eventually did so</p>
<p>In (D) “and” is a conjunction that ties the two (independent) clauses “John G. …larger world” and “eventually did it” together. The second clause is missing a subject. So if we add the missing subject the clause becomes “he eventually did it.” There’s a second problem: the pronoun “it” in the corrected clause is at best imprecise.</p>
<p>(E) corrects the major problem – i.e. the missing subject. Further it corrects the imprecision associated with “it”. “did so” clearly refers to the action of bringing the message etc.</p>
<p>In the first, it’s proper because the their comes after elephants and is referring back to elephants. If the their was referring to the team, then it would be ambiguous.</p>
<ol>
<li>Although the members of the wildlife biology team plan to study elephants in their natural habitat, they also want to observe the social behavior of elephants in zoo.</li>
</ol>
<p>Is the use of “their” and “they” ambiguous? Some readers may find the references ambiguous. So yes.</p>
<p>The sentence can be simplified. It’s unnecessarily verbose and awkward.</p>
<p>Here’s a possible alternative.</p>
<p>The wildlife biology team plans to study elephants both in the wild and in captivity.</p>
<p>fogcity:
for 2, I don’t think every conjunction requires a subject (if that even makes sense). Like you wouldn’t say I went shopping and I got food. It’s just wordy and redundant. So does all phrases after conjunction require subjects?</p>
<p>SerenityJade: So basically plug to see which it’s referring to and if it is the closer noun, it’s right?</p>