Explain the SAT official question of the day?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>The</a> Official SAT Question of the Day</p>

<p>Why is D correct? Shouldn't there be an apostrophe?</p>

2

<p>The only pronouns that take apostrophes are contractions.</p>

3

<p>D isn’t correct. Did you mean why isn’t D correct?</p>

4

<p>^ The OP was asking why choice D is grammatical.</p>

5

<p>I still don’t get it. Can you use some examples to show that D is grammatical. What do you mean only pronouns take the contraction for apostrophes?</p>

6

<p>

</p>

<p>If you replace “the Sumerians were” with “he was”, “people” with “person”, and “theirs” with “his”, it should seem intuitively correct(at least, that’s what I’m hoping). “Theirs” in this case is a noun meaning “that which is owned by them(in this case, the Sumerians)”, just as “his” can mean “that which he owns.”</p>

7

<p>Basically, you don’t use apostrophes for possessive pronouns like mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, ours, whose, its, etc.</p>

<p>CORRECT: “this is hers.” = “this belongs to her.”
INCORRECT: “this is her’s.”</p>

<p>CORRECT: “that dollar is mine.”
INCORRECT: “that dollar is mine’s.”</p>

<p>CORRECT: “his book”
INCORRECT: “his’ book”</p>

<p>CORRECT: “the team did its best”
INCORRECT: “the team did it’s best”
(note: “it’s” is a contraction meaning “it is”; thus words that look like possessive pronouns with apostrophes are just contractions–e.g., “it’s” = “it is”; “they’re” = “they are”)</p>

<p>CORRECT: “this game is ours for the taking.”
INCORRECT: “this game is our’s for the taking.”</p>

<p>The only possessive pronoun that takes an apostrophe is “one’s”: “A Room of One’s Own.”</p>

8

<p>Thanks crazybandit and purplepotato. I’m usually known naturally strong at the Writing section, but then this one got into me.</p>