<p>The well-preserved, 121-million-year-old fossilized bird embryo on display at the museum has several features that suggest that its young could move about and feed themselves very soon after they hatched.</p>
<li><p>its</p></li>
<li><p>her</p></li>
<li><p>their</p></li>
<li><p>the species</p></li>
<li><p>for this species</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Collegeboard says that 4 or D is the correct response.</p>
<p>Their explanation: </p>
<p>“Choice (D) is correct. It avoids the pronoun reference error of the original by using the species to indicate the kind of birds (birds of the same species) whose young could move about
hatched.”</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t 1 or A work?</p>
<p>b.c its not only talking about 1 bird in particular .. its the whole species</p>
<p>From my understanding, the sentence is trying to say the entire bird speice's offspring are independent from birth, not just that one bird. If you put it, you are saying, of that species, scientists know that only that bird's offspring are independent. You get what I'm saying?</p>
<p>Yes, I understand now.</p>
<p>Thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer my question! </p>
<p>My quandary has been liquidated!</p>
<p>No, that's not really why. It can't be "its" because later on in the sentence, it says, "feed THEMSELVES", which is plural. And its is singular.</p>
<p>"The species" is also singular. "Young" is plural. There is really nothing wrong with the original sentence grammatically, it just makes no sense. Because an embryo couldn't have had any young, it must be talking about the young of the species in general.</p>
<p>It's an ambigious pronoun-antecedent relationship, very common on the SATs. Since this question has already been resolved, I am posting just to point out the errors in some of the conclusions.</p>