Pronoun Case and Sound-Alike Pronouns

American Diploma › Digital SAT Reading and Writing — Complete Course

Pronoun case means the form a pronoun takes for its job in the sentence: *I* or *me*, *he* or *him*, *who* or *whom*, *its* or *it's*. Choosing the form has nothing to do with meaning — "Salma and me won" and "Salma and I won" mean the same thing — so the test uses these pairs to check whether you know the rules of Standard English. This lesson gives you a short test for every form, so you never have to guess by ear.

What this question type tests

These questions belong to Standard English Conventions, which is about 26% of the scored Reading and Writing questions (about 11–15 questions across the two modules). Inside that domain, the official skill group Form, Structure, and Sense covers pronoun use and the confusing sound-alike pairs that are named in the official skill list: its/it's, their/they're/there and your/you're. Convention questions usually come in the later part of each module, after Information and Ideas.

The stem is: "Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?" You know the question is about case or sound-alikes when the choices look like this:

• I / me / myself / us
• who / whom / which / whose
• its / it's / its' / their
• their / they're / there / its

The subject/object pairs (I/me, who/whom) are part of the same Standard English rules, and they often appear as wrong choices in pronoun questions, so learn them together with the sound-alikes.

Rule 1: Three forms — subject, object, possessive

• Subject form is used for the subject of a verb: "She designed the bridge." "We won."
• Object form is used after an action verb and after a preposition: "The city hired her." "The prize went to us."
• Possessive shows ownership and never takes an apostrophe: its, hers, ours, theirs, yours, whose. (*Her's*, *our's* and *its'* do not exist.)

Rule 2: Two people — cover the other one

The ear is usually right with one pronoun ("me won" sounds wrong) and usually wrong with two ("Salma and me won" sounds fine to many students). The fix is simple: cover the other person and test the pronoun alone.

• After prepositions (between, for, with, to, from, among, like, except) always use the object form: ✓ between you and me · ✗ between you and I · ✓ for him and her · ✗ for he and she.
• We / us + noun: drop the noun and test. "(We / Us) students asked for more time" → We asked → We students. "The talk was for (we / us) students" → for us → us students.

Rule 3: Comparisons with than and as

After *than* or *as*, the sentence is often unfinished. Finish it in your head, and the right form appears.

• "Nour plays more expressively than (he / him)." → than he plays → ✓ than he / than he does.
• "I trust Mona as much as (she / her)." Two meanings! → as much as she trusts Mona, or as much as I trust her. The passage decides; on the test, the choice with its verb ("she does") usually removes the doubt.
• Choices like "than he does" are often the safest correct answers because the added verb makes the case obvious.

Rule 4: Myself, himself, themselves — only with a mirror

Reflexive pronouns (*myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves*) are correct only when the subject acts on itself, or for emphasis right after a noun. They cannot replace *I* or *me*.

• ✓ I taught myself to code. (I … myself: the same person)
• ✓ The architect herself checked every beam. (emphasis)
• ✗ Karim and myself presented the project. → ✓ Karim and I
• ✗ Please send the files to myself. → ✓ to me
• *Hisself* and *theirselves* are not words; the forms are himself and themselves.

Rule 5: who, whom, whose, which, that

The he/him test: take only the words of the small clause after the blank and put *he* or *him* in the gap. If he fits, use who; if him fits, use whom. Remember the *m*: him = whom.

• "the engineer ______ the city hired" → the city hired him → whom
• "the engineer ______ designed the bridge" → he designed the bridge → who
• Interrupter trap: "the sculptor ______ historians believe made the bust" → remove *historians believe* → he made the bust → who (not *whom*).
• Preposition first: after *to, with, for, by, of* + this word, always whom: "the scientist with whom she worked".
• which vs who: a choice that uses *which* for a person is always wrong: ✗ "the teacher which helped me".

Rule 6: Sound-alikes — open the apostrophe

Possessive pronouns never have an apostrophe. An apostrophe in a pronoun always means a contraction (two words joined). So test every apostrophe by opening it up: if the long form makes sense, keep the apostrophe; if not, choose the possessive.

• its' is never a word. Neither are *their's* or *your's*.
• A possessive must be followed by a noun (or stand for one): "their keys". If the next word is a verb or an adjective ("______ able to"), you need a subject + verb: they're able to.
• There can also start a sentence before a verb: "There are several reasons." It is never possessive.

The method for test day

1. Read the choices. Same pronoun in different forms (I/me, who/whom) or sound-alikes with and without an apostrophe?
2. Apostrophe choices: open each contraction (it is, they are, you are, who is). Does the sentence need a verb there? Then the contraction. Does a noun follow that is owned? Then the possessive.
3. Subject or object? Cover the other person; use the he/him test for who/whom; finish comparisons after than/as.
4. People or things? who/whom for people, which for things, whose for both.
5. Check the number too: their/they're must point to a plural noun; its/it's to a singular one.

Worked examples

Worked example 1: who vs whom

Passage: "The engineer ______ the city hired to design the new pedestrian bridge had already worked on several projects along the Nile Corniche. Her design, which uses lightweight steel cables, was chosen from more than forty proposals."

Question: Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A) who
• B) whom
• C) which
• D) whose

Answer: B) whom. Make the small sentence from the clause: "the city hired ___" → "the city hired her" (object form). Object form = "whom". The engineer receives the action of "hired"; "the city" is the subject of that verb.

• A) who — "Who" is the subject form, but the subject of "hired" is "the city", not the engineer.
• C) which — "Which" is used for things, never for a person.
• D) whose — "Whose" shows possession: "whose the city hired" makes no sense.

Worked example 2: two people after a verb

Passage: "At the end of the season, the club's coach gave a short speech about teamwork. To everyone's surprise, she thanked my brother and ______ for staying late every evening to repair the old practice nets."

Question: Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A) I
• B) myself
• C) me
• D) mine

Answer: C) me. Cover "my brother and": "she thanked ___" → "she thanked me". After an action verb the object form is needed, so "my brother and me" is correct.

• A) I — "I" is the subject form: "she thanked I" is wrong, even though "my brother and I" can sound polite.
• B) myself — "Myself" is reflexive and needs "I" as the subject of the same clause; here the subject is "she".
• D) mine — "Mine" is a possessive that stands alone ("the book is mine"); it cannot receive the action.

Worked example 3: they're vs their vs there

Passage: "Honeybees share the location of food through a movement called the waggle dance. When forager bees return to the hive, ______ able to show both the direction and the distance of a flower patch through the angle and length of their dance."

Question: Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A) its
• B) their
• C) they're
• D) there

Answer: C) they're. The clause needs a subject and a verb: "the forager bees are able to show". Open the contraction: "they're" = "they are", and "they" agrees with the plural "forager bees".

• A) its — "Its" is possessive and singular; "its able" has no verb.
• B) their — "Their" is possessive and must be followed by a noun; "their able" has no verb.
• D) there — "There able" has no subject and no verb.

Worked example 4: whose vs who's

Passage: "Egyptian scientist Sameera Moussa, ______ research focused on the medical uses of nuclear physics, argued in the 1940s that atomic science should be used to treat disease and made as affordable as aspirin."

Question: Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

• A) who's
• B) whose
• C) who
• D) whom

Answer: B) whose. The clause shows possession: Sameera Moussa's research. Open the contraction in the trap choice — "who is research focused" is nonsense — so the possessive "whose" is correct.

• A) who's — "Who's" means "who is" or "who has"; neither fits before "research".
• C) who — "Who research focused …" has no possessive; it makes the woman the subject and leaves "research" without a role.
• D) whom — "Whom" is an object form and does not show possession.

Practice

Ten original questions in Digital SAT format. Decide what job the pronoun does (subject, object or possessive) and open every apostrophe before choosing.

All pages in this course

Start here

• The Digital SAT: Complete Overview
• Time Strategy and How to Attack Every Question

Craft and Structure

• Words in Context
• High-Value Vocabulary for SAT Reading and Writing
• Text Structure and Purpose
• Cross-Text Connections

Information and Ideas

• Central Ideas and Details
• Command of Evidence: Textual
• Command of Evidence: Quantitative
• Inferences

Standard English Conventions

• Sentence Boundaries
• Extra Information: Commas, Dashes and Brackets in Pairs
• Commas: Introductions, Lists, Adjectives — and When NOT to Use One
• Semicolons: Joining Two Complete Sentences
• Colons: After a Complete Sentence
• Dashes — and Choosing Between , ; : —
• Subject–Verb Agreement
• Pronoun–Antecedent Agreement, Clarity and Consistency
• Pronoun Case and Sound-Alike Pronouns
• Verb Tense and Aspect
• Verb Finiteness: Gerunds, Participles and Infinitives
• Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers
• Parallel Structure
• Faulty and Logical Comparisons
• Plurals and Possessives

Expression of Ideas

• Transitions
• Rhetorical Synthesis (Student Notes)

Full practice tests

• Digital SAT Reading and Writing — Practice Test 1
• Digital SAT Reading and Writing — Practice Test 2
• Digital SAT Reading and Writing — Practice Test 3