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SAT (Fall 2023)

Course: SAT (Fall 2023) > Unit 11

Lesson 3: Writing: Grammar

Writing: Possessive determiners — Example 1

Watch Sal work through a basic possessive determiners question from the SAT Writing and Language Test.

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Video transcript

- [Instructor] When my father told me that I was a bad driver, I responded with, "Only when your sitting next to me." All right, so let's think about this. We have your underlined. So what are we trying to say? Only when your sitting next to me. So it sounds okay, but really when we're saying your sitting next to me, we're trying to say you're, as short for you are, sitting next to me. Only when you are sitting next to me. And that wouldn't be this your, that would be the contraction, you, Y-O-U apostrophe R-E. This is you are. This is the contraction for you are, so this is what we would want here. We wouldn't want this. We would want, and they sound the same, that's your, you would pronounce this you're, as well. Only when you're, you are, sitting next to me. We don't want Y-O-U-R, Y-O-U-R, this is second person, referring to you, but it's something that you have, your. So it's second person possessive. So this is a second person possessive. So this is if we're talking about something that you had or I responded with, if they're talking to their father, it's something that their father had only when, I don't know, your watch is on, or something that, it's indicating some type of possession. So this is second person possessive right over here, which we do not want over there. This is one of those mistakes that I know I've done, even though I know it if someone points it to me, or even if I look carefully, I, of course, this is you are while this is possessive. But sometimes when you're typing emails really fast, this is a very easy mistake to do. Because sometimes you just type as things sound. But this, we definitely wanna go with you are. We wanna go with you're, the contraction for you are.