A pronoun question with a blank after a verb tests whether you can match a pronoun to its noun and its job. First, sort the choices by number, then read back to find who or what the pronoun stands for. Next, check the pronoun's job: a subject does the verb's action, while an object receives it. Nearby nouns can lead you away from the right noun, and number alone doesn't settle which form you need.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the beginning of the sentence and look for who makes the journey. How many birds does that noun name?
- Hint 2
For allows, ask who does the allowing and who is being allowed. Whoever does the allowing is the subject; whoever is being allowed is the object.
Step-by-step
Match the noun and the pronoun's job
Step 1Sort by number and form
At allows, sort the pronouns by number: it and her refer to one, while plural pronouns refer to more than one. What else do we need to check? Pronouns also change form depending on their job, so number alone may not decide the answer. We'll read back to find what the blank stands for, then check its job after the verb.
- Step 2
Find who experiences the daylight
Who gets to experience more daylight? The sentence begins with Arctic terns, and the phrase traveling from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back each year tells us that these birds make the trip. The nearby this remarkable journey is what gives the birds that chance; the journey itself isn't a creature experiencing daylight. The pronoun stands for the terns, more than one bird, so it and her don't match its number.
- Step 3
Choose the object form
Who does the allowing, and who is being allowed? In this remarkable journey allows, the journey is the subject, the thing doing the allowing. The birds are being allowed to experience daylight, so they're the object, the ones receiving what the verb allows. English uses they for a subject, as in they migrate, and them for an object, as in allows them, so the blank takes them. Choice C.