Question

Directions for questions 107 to 111: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

The Celts may be taken as a starting point for a study of the long series of people whose arrival and settlement in Britain have contributed to its history. They provide a link between the prehistoric period, at the end of which they had emerged ...

(Passage of 230 words, from "The Celts" by Nora Chadwick, Penguin edition.)

A line was taken and the pronoun "our" was underlined. Whom did the pronoun refer to?

• A. Europeans
• B. British
• C. Celts
• D. Romans

Hint:

Ask who the author is writing for. Pronouns like "our" usually mean the author's own group.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

This passage looks at the Celts as the starting point for the long history of the people who settled in Britain, written by a British historian for a British readership. A pronoun like "our" in such a passage almost always ties back to the writer's and reader's shared identity, not to the group being studied from the outside.

1. Europeans: The passage frames the discussion around "Britain" and "its history," not Europe as a whole, so a broad label like "Europeans" does not match the narrow, national framing the author uses.
2. British: The author studies the Celts as one of "the long series of people whose arrival and settlement in Britain have contributed to its history." The word "our" fits naturally as the author speaking to a British audience about their shared national story, since the Celts are described as contributors to "our" history, not as "us."
3. Celts: The Celts are the subject being studied in the passage, referred to in the third person throughout ("They provide a link..."). A pronoun for the speaker and reader would not be used for the very group being described from the outside.
4. Romans: The Romans are not even the immediate focus of this opening part of the passage, so there is no reason for "our" to point to them here.

The pronoun "our" refers to the British, since the author writes as a British historian addressing British readers about the shared history their land has inherited from earlier peoples like the Celts.

Let's summarize:

• Pronouns like "our" and "we" in a history passage usually point to the author's and reader's own group, not the group under study.
• Here that shared group is the British, matching option (b).

So the correct answer is British.