<p>I was just going over some practice questions and for some I don't understand the grammatical correction. Please help.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>"The young fish were very tiny, yet each of them ate many times its own weight in solid food every day" --- It says this questions has No Error. But my questions is why wouldn't you choose to change "its" to "their" (its was one of the underlines choices) Is it better or worse to change it, I don't understand why changing it to "their own weight..." would be wrong. </p></li>
<li><p>"The record left by fossils, the ancient remains of plants and animals, provide scientists with their primary source of information about prehistoric life. --- The error here is "provide" because I think it should be "provide(s)" (correct me if I wrong). Can someone explain why?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I know grammar is not fun but this would help me a lot. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Subject/verb/pronoun agreement.</p>
<h1>16 "each…ate…its. singular subject, singular pronoun. “Of them” is a modifier and that’s where it tricks you.</h1>
<h1>24 “record…provide.” singular subject, singular verb needs an “s”. Should be provides, like you think.</h1>
<p>’…each of them’ is what’s eating. That refers to an individual fish; it’s singular. Their would refer to a plural, and be wrong. </p>
<p>‘the ancient…animals’ is referring to fossils, so we can cut that out. ‘left by fossils’ modifies the ‘record’, so we can cut that out too. We’re left with “The record provide scientists…” Now do you see why it has to be ‘provides’?</p>
<p>For 16</p>
<p>the key is the word ‘each,’ which is singular. Each (of them) ate many times its own weight in solid food every day. The sentence makes sense even if you take out ‘of them,’ which is what makes it seem like you need the their. You could just as easily replace ‘of them’ with the word ‘one,’ which would make it sound more singular. No matter what follows each, the fact remains that each is the subject ‘each’ is singular</p>
<p>If someone with deeper grammar knowledge finds mistakes in this explanation, please fix them in another comment, I’m fairly sure of my explanation, but grammar isn’t exactly my favorite subject, and I’d hate to be spreading made up grammar rules.</p>
<p>As for 24, I don’t know, I would think that provides fits as well.</p>