<p>I know that vague pronoun references are really big issues on SAT writing. But, in this question: Because they painted scenes of life as ordinary people lived it...
is the "it" acceptable because it refers to the only other singular noun "life"? I thought that maybe there was an error here because "it" could refer to scenes or life. Well, if it were scenes, then the pronoun would be wrong, but I still thought maybe it was unclear. On the SAT, can you assume that a certain pronoun goes with certain noun because of the singular or plural state?</p>
<p>“It” can only refer to life here. It doesn’t make sense any other way. The scenes are of [life as ordinary people lived it].</p>
<p>What’s the whole question?</p>
<p>If there’s only one singular noun that precedes a singular pronoun, then the two must correspond. So…
…that is necessarily correct only if there is only one singular noun (or if there is only one plural noun).</p>
<p>However, it’s important to note that if there’s more than one singular noun in a sentence, then a singular pronoun isn’t necessarily ambiguous. In that case it would depend on context and meaning; if we know what the pronoun refers to based on the meaning of the sentence, then it’s not ambiguous.</p>
<p>For example…
A: He threw a bottle into the stands, and he was fined because it hurt somebody.</p>
<p>B: He threw several bottles into the stands, and he was fined because they hurt somebody.</p>
<p>C: Mary told her daughter that she’ll be home early.</p>
<p>There is no error in A. “it” refers to “bottle” simply because “bottle” is the only other singular noun. And since this makes sense there is no logical error.</p>
<p>There is no error in B. Although there is more than one plural noun that the plural pronoun can grammatically refer to, we know based on the meaning of the sentence that the pronoun must refer to “bottles” and there is no ambiguity.</p>
<p>There is an error in C because the pronoun “she’ll” is ambiguous grammatically AND semantically (in structure AND in meaning). We don’t know whether the daughter or the mother will be home early. The mother might be commanding her daughter to be home early (“You will be home early!”), or the mother might simply be telling her daughter that she herself will be home early.</p>
<p>okay, thanks so much!</p>