<ol>
<li>The construction crew arrived first thing in the morning and they immediately began working on the houses new basement . No error</li>
</ol>
<p>in this sentence(which i took from an sat practice test) the actual answer is no error.
but isnt crew a collective noun. shouldnt 'they' be changed to 'it'
please answer</p>
<p>Well, you wouldn’t call a group of people ‘it,’ would you? Seems like ‘they’ fits better.</p>
<p>Hmm… interesting. I would think it should be changed to “it” as well.</p>
<p>Here’s an example from collegeboard’s writing practice questions
<p>This is a similar question and collegeboard says that “their” is incorrectly modifying a singular noun, “committee.”</p>
<p>With collective nouns, you are supposed to choose the pronoun in context, based on whether the focus is on the individuals acting independently (crew=their, because each crew member is acting individually) or the group acting in unison. In practice, I often write around it, because it makes my head hurt. (Think about something like “faculty,” which can be used to refer to the group as a whole or to individuals within the group. Ugh.)</p>
<p>In American English, “crew” is generally singular. But it can be plural if the group of people (“crew”) is considered more as a single unit than as individuals. The rules are not clearly or universally outlined, but good writers are likely to differentiate between *The construction crew came with their families<a href=“each%20individual%20within%20the%20crew%20has%20his%20or%20her%20own%20family,%20and%20each%20individual%20came%20separately%20from%20his%20or%20her%20own%20home,%20so%20the%20group%20isn’t%20considered%20as%20a%20single%20unit”>/i</a> and *The construction crew is working on the house<a href=“the%20crew,%20as%20a%20unit,%20is%20working%20on%20the%20house”>/i</a>.</p>
<p>So I would’ve used “it” instead of “they” in that question. It’s a bad question because it leaves not enough room for reasoning. In my opinion, questions like this are generally bad because they don’t really have to do with reasoning (the SAT is a Reasoning test), because the rules differ between regions. For example, British English uses plural collective nouns (“The group are…”) more than American English does. </p>
<p>I recommend using only College Board practice exams.</p>
<p>The crew doesn’t work in unison. Each member of the crew works independently. Nevertheless, this is a pretty lame question, as it requires a high school student to interpret a nuance of usage that would make even the most seasoned copyeditor scratch his or her OCD head.</p>
<p>Also, in real life, no one would notice whether “crew” was an “its” or a “their,” as long as the chosen word sounded all right in context. That is all.</p>
<p>thanks guys.
@crazybandit -i liked your explanation the best. and yes, the test isnt an official collegeboard test, so i assume the solution is wrong</p>
<p>one more query
(Neither of the warriors were aware of the massive wounds they had suffered) because each was so intently focused on vanquishing the other
(A) Neither of the warriors were aware of the
massive wounds they had suffered
(B) Neither of the warriors was aware of the
massive wounds they had suffered
(C) The wounds suffered by the warriors
who were not aware
(D) Having suffered massive wounds, neither
of the warriors was aware
(E) Despite the wounds suffered, neither of
the warriors was aware
the answer is b.
but shouldnt ‘they had suffered’ be changed to ‘he had suffered’ as neither is singular</p>