- [Instructor] We're taking
a look at question 24 here from a passage about a
famous abstract sculpture "Bird in Space." Let me read the sentence here. "With its ends tapering into points, "much of the slender 53-inch curve "appears suspended in the
air above its marble base." Okay, so our options for its ends, the underlined portion,
are choice A, no change, which is it apostrophe S end apostrophe S, choice B is I-T apostrophe
S ends no apostrophe, choice C is I-T-S apostrophe
ends no apostrophe, and choice D is I-T-S no
apostrophe ends no apostrophe. So this question is asking
us about apostrophe use, but more specifically
it's asking us to decide between two forms of the word its. Is it I-T-S, the possessive
meaning belongs to it, or is it the contraction I-T
apostrophe S meaning it is? You're gonna see one to
two questions like this on your official SAT, questions
that test your knowledge of its versus it's or
there, their, and they're. So yeah, let's review. Its without an apostrophe
means belongs to it. Whereas I-T apostrophe
S is short for it is. And their T-H-E-I-R means belongs to them. They're T-H-E-Y apostrophe
R-E is short for they are. And there T-H-E-R-E means that place. So we've got a top tip
for questions like these, which is expand the contractions. So if you're looking at
a sentence that says, "The plate had a crack
running across its center," we can take that underlined contraction and expand it into it is. So now it reads, "The plate had a crack "running across it is center," and that makes the error more obvious. We can see that the word
that we actually need there is the possessive I-T-S,
its no apostrophe. Another way to think of it is
to group the possessive its with other possessive pronouns, like his hers, yours, ours, and theirs. none of these has an apostrophe, ever. Let's head back to the question. If you want to take a
minute to pause the video, see if you can solve it on your own. Okay. Let's do it. All right, so let's take our top tip and expand the contractions. So choice A, it is end
is. That makes no sense. But what about it is end
possessive apostrophe S, right? This choice implies that
something belongs to the end, but no, neither make sense. The ends are tapering into points. There's nothing possessive about that. So I'm gonna cross off no change. Choice B has the same problem. It is ends, with it is
ends tapering into points. That's weird. No, thank you. Ah, we can cross that off, too. Choice C is I-T-S apostrophe, which isn't a a thing, actually. There are only two forms of
its that exist in English. I-T-S and I-T apostrophe S. Anything else can be
immediately eliminated. This just doesn't exist. Already we've eliminated
our way to choice D, its ends no apostrophe. So its is possessive
and possessive pronouns don't ever have apostrophes. So, okay, so the slender 53-inch curve, this is the sculpture
we're talking about here. It has two ends and the
two ends belong to it. Choice D is our answer. So our strategy for questions like this is to first eliminate the big outliers by expanding the contractions. If it is or they are don't
make sense in context, get rid of I-T apostrophe
S and they apostrophe R-E. And if multiple choices use the correct form of its or there, look for other errors
within those choices, like punctuation errors or
pronoun agreement errors. With this technique, you'll be able to bounce through a question
like this very quickly indeed. Good luck out there. You've got this.