<p>Despite Mitchell's steadfast attempts to mitigate his friends' ongoing rivalry, he was ultimately unable to mediate their long-overdue reconciliation.
A. steadfast
B. friends'
C. he
D. their
E. No error</p>
<p>Seems to me like the answer should be E, no error. This doesn’t sound like a college board question though, is it?</p>
<p>P.S. I could be wrong</p>
<p>EDIT: Maybe the answer is C because we don’t know who “he” is referring to. The sentence only told us about Mitchell’s attempts, not Mitchell… </p>
<p>I guess we’ll wait til silverturtle sees this :D</p>
<p>I’m going to go with C too.</p>
<p>The sentence doesn’t really tell us who “he” is referring to and it never mentions Mitchell</p>
<p>This is a really, really bad question, definitely not from the college board.</p>
<p>The answer might be C or it might not, idk… but I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>“He” refers to Mitchell. I think the answer is E.</p>
<p>F. Just plain inelegant, because the writer sounds as if he swallowed a thesaurus.</p>
<p>I’m choosing F.</p>
<p>C because there is no one “he” is referring to. Mitchell is stated for his steadfast attempts…</p>
<p>right?</p>
<p>The noun is his “attempts” not “Mitchell”, so “he” may not fit</p>
<p>I say C. “He” could be anybody, not necessarily Mitchell. The way it’s stated, Mitchell attempted to fix the problem, but maybe a teacher or another outside person attempted as well.</p>
<p>How can it be C.? Mitchell is obviously the “he” because of the use of “despite”. If it said “Despite his steadfast attempts”, it would work, right (or am I wrong about this too)?</p>
<p>The answer is probably C. I don’t like this question…</p>
<p>According to the book, the answer is C.</p>
<p>As others have said, this is a really poorly written question. However, I guess they’re saying that the correct way to write it would be, “Despite his steadfast attempts to mitigate his friends’ ongoing rivalry, Mitchell was ultimately unable to mediate their long-overdue reconciliation.”</p>
<p>But seriously, I’m a 3rd-year English major, and I think this question is insanely picky. IIRC, you won’t see anything like this on the SAT, so don’t stress about it. :)</p>
<p>Ignore this question. Most linguists find it perfectly acceptable for a pronoun’s referent to be in a different case than the pronoun itself, and other than that potential issue, grammaticality and clarity are not in question here. </p>
<p>Interestingly, someone successfully challenged the College Board on a question of this nature when it did not correct a case disconnect in pronoun reference, I believe citing a style book’s recommendation that a pronoun and its reference be in the same case. Most third-party commentators thought the College Board was right in the first place. In any case, the College Board will steer clear of this in the future, so don’t worry.</p>