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SAT (Fall 2023)

Course: SAT (Fall 2023) > Unit 11

Lesson 3: Writing: Grammar

Writing: Possessive determiners — Example 2

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

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Video transcript

- [Instructor] Get up from that chair, because doctors say that walking for even two minutes every hour can have a significant impact on you're health. All right, so we've underlined you're. And this is strange, because you apostrophe R-E, this is a contraction for you are. And so we should just be able to replace it with you are and see if it makes sense. Because doctors say that even walking for two minutes every hour can have a significant impact on you are health. Well, that clearly doesn't make any sense. I am not health. So let's not, let's rule out keeping it the way it is. And the intention here was to have your, the second person possessive, your health. Whose health? Your health. So this is something that you have, you have your health. So this is what was intended. And they sound the same, but they are spelled differently. We want Y-O-U-R. Yours health, that doesn't even sound right. Or a significant impact on their health. Well, their health doesn't make sense because they're telling, the sentence is speaking to the second person. It's saying get up from that chair. It's speaking directly to a person. So if I'm speaking directly to a person, I would say, "Hey, you." I wouldn't say, "Hey, them" or their health. So I would rule out these two, as well. So very important to realize, this you're versus your. This is something, this is one of the most common grammar mistakes. I would say your versus you're is up there with their versus there and its versus it's. And all of these cases, these are possessive pronouns right over here, and these are other things. This one over here and this one over here, these are contractions. And there, this is in reference to something. This is kind of saying a location, here or there. Or there are so many things, while this is a possessive. So these are good ones to know. I think even the best of folks have made this mistake when they're typing an email really fast. And so it's definitely a good think to keep a close eye on.