SAT Pronouns Questions: The Complete Guide to Avoiding Costly Grammar Mistakes

TLDR:

• Pronoun agreement errors appear in roughly 15% of SAT Writing questions and are highly testable.
• Ambiguous pronouns create confusion about which noun the pronoun refers to—the SAT loves testing this.
• Pronoun case mistakes (I vs. me, who vs. whom) follow predictable patterns you can master quickly.
• Most students miss pronoun questions not because they're hard, but because they read too quickly.
• Singular "they" is now accepted on the SAT as a gender-neutral pronoun for singular antecedents.

Pronoun Agreement Is About Matching Numbers, Not Just Sounding Right

Here's what trips up even strong students: a sentence can sound perfectly fine to your ear but still contain a pronoun agreement error. Your job isn't to trust your instincts—it's to count.

Every pronoun must agree in number with its antecedent (the noun it refers to). Singular antecedents get singular pronouns. Plural antecedents get plural pronouns. Simple in theory, deceptive in practice.

Consider this classic SAT-style sentence:

"Each of the students submitted their final project on time."

Sounds normal, right? Most people talk this way. But "each" is singular, which means the pronoun should be "his or her" (or the now-acceptable "their" when used as a singular pronoun). The SAT used to mark this wrong every time. Now, with updated grammar conventions, singular "they/their" is accepted—but only when it clearly refers to a singular, gender-neutral antecedent.

The real trap? Sentences like this:

"The committee announced their decision yesterday."

"Committee" is a collective noun that takes a singular pronoun in American English. It should be "its decision," not "their decision." This catches students constantly because in British English, collective nouns often take plural pronouns. The SAT follows American conventions.

Here's what makes this costly: pronoun errors typically appear 3-4 times per test. Miss all of them, and you're looking at a 40-50 point drop in your Writing score. Get them all right, and you're suddenly competitive for that 700+ range.

These Indefinite Pronouns Are Always Singular (Yes, Even "Everyone")

Memorize this list. Seriously, write it on a flashcard:

Always singular: each, either, neither, one, everyone, everybody, anyone, anybody, someone, somebody, no one, nobody

These pronouns are singular even when they feel plural. "Everyone brought their lunch" sounds natural in conversation, but on the SAT, it's technically "everyone brought his or her lunch" or the accepted singular "their."

Here's where it gets interesting: The College Board updated its stance around 2017 to accept singular "they" as grammatically correct when referring to a person of unspecified gender. This reflects evolving language use. But—and this is crucial—they still test whether you can identify the antecedent correctly.

SAT-style example:

"Neither of the proposals included their cost estimates."

Wrong. "Neither" is singular, so it should be "its cost estimates." The prepositional phrase "of the proposals" doesn't change the fact that "neither" is your subject.

Ambiguous Pronouns Create Confusion About Who Did What

This is where the SAT gets genuinely tricky. An ambiguous pronoun reference occurs when a pronoun could refer to more than one noun, leaving the reader confused about the intended meaning.

"Maria told Jennifer that she needed to revise her essay before the deadline."

Who needs to revise? Maria or Jennifer? Whose essay are we talking about? This sentence has two ambiguous pronouns ("she" and "her"), making it impossible to determine the intended meaning. The SAT will always mark this type of construction as incorrect.

The fix requires restructuring:

"Maria told Jennifer to revise her essay before the deadline."