Question

Instructions: A sentence has been broken into four parts. Choose the part that has an error.

(a) At last there came a time when the driver went
(b) further afield than he had yet gone,
(c) and during its absence, the horses began to tremble
(d) worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright.

• A. a
• B. b
• C. c
• D. d

Hint:

Trace 'its' back to its antecedent, the driver is a person and needs 'his,' not 'its.'

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

This question tests pronoun-antecedent agreement, choosing a pronoun that correctly matches the noun it refers back to.

1. (a): "At last there came a time when the driver went" sets up the subject, "the driver," correctly and grammatically. No error.
2. (b): "further afield than he had yet gone," uses "he" to refer back to "the driver," which is correct since the driver is a person, referred to with a personal pronoun.
3. (c): This is the error. "and during its absence, the horses began to tremble" uses "its," a pronoun for an inanimate object or an animal without a clear gender reference. But the absence being described is the driver's absence (he has gone further afield, away from the horses), so the pronoun should be "his," matching "the driver" from part (a), not "its."
4. (d): "worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright" completes the description of the horses' reaction correctly, with no grammatical issue.

The corrected sentence would read: "...and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever..." Since the flawed pronoun is in part (c), option C is the correct answer.

Let's summarize:

• Always trace a pronoun back to its antecedent, the noun it is supposed to replace, and check that they agree in person and, where relevant, gender.
• "Its" is reserved for inanimate things or unspecified animals, never for a specific person already named in the sentence, here "the driver."

Whenever you see "it" or "its" referring back to a person, treat it as a strong signal of an antecedent-agreement error.