Try It: Pronouns

This activity is not graded. The text fields below are purely for self-reflection; you do not need to submit anything for this assignment.

Identify

Identify all the pronouns in the following excerpt. Type them in the text frame below:

An asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds.

Figure 1. The Chicxulub impact spewed hundreds of billions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere, producing a worldwide blackout and freezing temperatures that persisted for at least a decade.

It’s dark. It’s always dark these days. Lights in the sky burn your eyes, so you keep your face to ground in the hopes that they’ll go away. But they don’t. The air is heavy. Heavy with poisons that make it difficult to breathe. Heavy with foreboding dread.

You, my unfortunate friend, are going through a mass extinction!

There have been five periods of mass extinction in the past. These represent major phases in the history of life where we see global reorganizations of ecosystems and their inhabitants. Perhaps the most infamous is the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, 66 million years ago. This even saw the extinction of numerous weird and wonderful marine reptile groups, the flying pterosaurs, ammonites, and of course, the non-avian (bird-like) dinosaurs.

Scientifically speaking, we’re in broad agreement about what caused this upheaval of life: the combination of a huge asteroid impact at Chicxulub in Mexico and a massive eruption of the Deccan Traps in western India.

Complete the Table

Identify the missing pronouns to complete the table:

Person Number Nominative Objective Possessive
First Singular I me mine
Plural us ours
Second Singular you your
Plural you
Third Singular he his his
her hers
Plural they

Selecting for Case

Each of the following sentences is missing a pronoun. Possible pronouns are listed in the sentence; choose the best pronoun to complete the sentence. Type your answers in the text frame below:

  1. Eric has to get to the bakery at 4:00 a.m. every morning. It’s hard to wake up, but (he / him / his) thinks it’s worth it.
  2. Larissa likes sequins more than (I / me / my / mine) do.
  3. Hockey isn’t (I / me / my / mine) favorite sport (first person singular), but it sure is (she / her / hers).
  4. (You / your / yours) have left (this / that / these / those) papers out on the table for a week now. Throw (it / its / they / them / their / theirs) away before I do.