[Video] Q12: No change or himself or herself or their selves or oneself

Explanation for Question 12 From the Writing Section on the Official Sat Practice Test 3

Now as we look at number 12, we see that our sentence says justice 2 travelers taking road trips today may need to take a break for food at 3 a rest area. Along the highway, 4 settlers traversing, the American west by train in the mid 18 hundreds, 5 often found blank in need of refreshments. 6 And so the first thing we should figure out is, you know, 7 we have a type of pronoun here, themselves, 8 his or herself, their selves oneself. So we're talking about someone or a group 9 of people who are we talking about settlers, 10 and we need to notice that this is plural. So that allows us to 11 eliminate answer choices, B and D because oneself that's, 12 you know, one person which would, would have been a singular thing. 13 And then him and her or herself, 14 him and her that's a one-person rather than saying them. 15 Right. And so this is also singular. 16 So we eliminate B and D. And now the question is, 17 what is the correct way to refer to more than one person? 18 Is it themselves or their selves and it's going to be themselves, 19 um, right, because we don't say their selves, 20 um, the correct way to refer to them. It's just going to be themselves. 21 Um, because we're talking about a, them, 22 the settlers are them not there, 23 right there shows possession of something. That's the version of, 24 of they that we use. If they own something, 25 if they possess something and they're not possessing the selves, 26 we're just using this as a pronoun. Right. And so that's what allows us 27 to choose answer choice a.