Explanation for Question 24 From the Writing Section on the 2017 May Sat
Question 24 focuses on pasta fees and possession. 2 So to determine the correct answer, we want to determine which word, 3 um, or words are possessive and if they should have an apostrophe 4 or not. So let's look at the underlying section, 5 which is it, apostrophe S and apostrophe S the 6 word it's right there. 7 Um, we have two options for how to spell it. 8 We have without an apostrophe or with an apostrophe without an apostrophe. 9 That's possessive hope. 10 I spelled that right. And with an apostrophe, 11 it's the contraction. 12 It is in the sentence here with its 13 ends tapering into points. 14 We can tell that it's, it's possessive because it's, 15 it's owning the ends. It's saying that the ends are part of the it's 16 the pronoun. So we want to have the possessive form without an apostrophe, 17 um, that actually knocks us out already to only D is there answer choice, 18 because ABC has an apostrophe after, 19 um, or in the word it's, but let's talk about why we don't need 20 that. Apostrophe in the ends, the word ends, 21 right there is not possessive. 22 We're not saying that the ends owns something or possessed something. 23 It's, um, the word that is being owned by something else, 24 but it's so with its ends tapering into points, 25 um, tapering is the verb that the ends are doing. 26 It's not something that the ends owns, 27 so we leave it without an apostrophe. 28 It's still plural. So it would be D I T S 29 E N D S with no apostrophes.