SKILL 5: FIND PRONOUN REFERENTS
Example
The passage:
Carnivorous plants, such as the sundew and the Venus-Flytrap, are generally found in humid areas where there is an inadequate supply of nitrogen in the soil. In order to survive, these plants have developed mechanisms to trap insects within their foliage. They have digestive fluids to obtain the necessary nitrogen from the insects. These plants trap the insects in a variety of ways. The sundew has sticky hairs on its leaves; when an insect lands on these leaves, it gets caught up in the sticky hairs, and the leaf wraps itself around the insect. The leaves of the Venus-Flytrap function more like a trap, snapping suddenly and forcefully shut around an insect.
The questions:
1. The pronoun "they" in line 5 refers to
(A) humid areas
(B) these plants
(C) insects
(D) digetive fluids
2. The pronoun "it" in line 8 refers to
(A) a variety
(B) the sundew
(C) an insect
(D) the leaf