An apostrophe question with a noun and a pronoun tests how each word shows ownership. Read across the blank and test each changed word on its own. A noun needs an apostrophe only when it owns the next noun: before s for one owner, after s for several owners ending in s. Then find what the pronoun stands for: its names one owner, and their names several. Count owners from the passage, not nearby nouns.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look in the first sentence for how many icons the researcher points out.
- Hint 2
Ask whose influence the sentence describes. Use the words after the colon to find what the pronoun stands for, then decide whether that’s one thing or more than one.
Step-by-step
Test the noun, then the pronoun
Step 1Check what the icon owns
The researcher points out a small icon, and the choices change the noun naming it as well as a pronoun. Does the icon own the simplicity? Run the of test by flipping the nouns: the simplicity of the icon says what the sentence means, so the noun needs an apostrophe. There’s one owner because the passage names one icon, even though it appears in the corner of nearly every screen.
- Step 2
Find whose influence it is
Whose influence is the sentence describing? Read after the colon: it guides users through the entire app explains why the icon has influence, because it helps people move through the app. That means the icon owns the influence, so the pronoun has to show something belonging to that one icon. The screens are where the icon appears, and the users are the people it guides. Neither owns the influence described here.
- Step 3
Write the two ownership forms
Which forms show ownership by one icon? A noun naming one owner takes ’s, giving icon’s, while the pronoun its shows something belonging to one thing without an apostrophe. The form icons’ would mean several owners, and icons would show no ownership; their also refers to several owners. The version with one owner in both places is icon’s simplicity hides its. Choice D.