What does this question test?
This question tests your knowledge of pronoun antecedent number agreement. It also tests your understanding of how “to verb” and “verb-ing” words can act as subjects.
What does this sentence mean?
This sentence states that Caribou are wary animals. This means that hunting them required exceptional hunting skill.
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What are the errors in the original sentence?
Caribou are wary animals with excellent hearing, so stalking them over the treeless landscape, getting close enough to kill it with nothing but a handheld lance, as Dorset people did, required exceptional hunting skill.
The sentence has following structure:
- Clause 1: Caribou are wary animals with excellent hearing,
- Clause 2: so stalking them over the treeless landscape, getting close enough to kill it with nothing but a handheld lance,
- Clause 3: as Dorset people did,
- Clause 2 (contd.): required exceptional hunting skill.
The subject verb pairs are marked as shown. The subject for clause 2 is a verb-ing phrase – stalking them and getting close…This sentence has 2 errors:
Pronoun Number Error: The pronoun “it” refers to “Caribou”, which in this case is plural. As you can see in Clause 1, verb is plural for the subject – caribou. Thus, the pronoun “it” should also be plural.
Punctuation Error: The list of subjects – stalking.., getting…should be connected using “and”
Answer Choice Analysis:
Choice B: Caribou are wary animals with excellent hearing, so to stalk them over the treeless landscape and get close enough to kill one with nothing but a handheld lance, as Dorset people did, required exceptional hunting skill.No errors. The subject in this sentence is – To stalk…and get close. Note that “to” is considered common for second element. Also notice that pronoun “it” has been changed into “one”. Here “one” means “one of Caribou”.
Choice C: Caribou are wary animals with excellent hearing, so in order to stalk them over the treeless landscape and get close enough to kill one with nothing but a handheld lance, as Dorset people did, required exceptional hunting skill.Fragment Error: Clause 2 lacks a subject. By converting “to stalk” to “in order to stalk”, the subject no longer exists. Even though the meaning of “in order to verb” and “to verb” is similar, their grammatical usage is different. For example:
- In order to lose weight, you must exercise.
- To lose weight requires exercise.
Pronoun Number error: Similar to Choice A
Fragment Error: Missing Subject as in Choice C
Choice E: Caribou are wary animals with excellent hearing, and so stalking them over the treeless landscape and getting close enough in order to kill it with nothing but a handheld lance, as Dorset people did, required exceptional hunting skill.Redundancy Error: Use of “and” prior to “so” is not required. Comma + so can connect two independent clauses.
Pronoun Error: Similar to choice C.
Thus, Choice B is the correct answer.
What are the key take-away messages?
- Pronoun-antecedent must agree in number.
- “In order to verb” and “to verb” are used in a sentence in different grammatical ways. “To verb” can act as noun and hence can act as subject of the sentence. “In order to” cannot act as a subject of the sentence.
- Comma + FANBOYS can be used to connect two independent clauses.
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