An apostrophe question with a pronoun and a noun tests what each word does in the sentence. Test each word on its own: it's means it is or it has, while its shows ownership without an apostrophe. Find the noun the pronoun stands for and check whether it names one thing or several. Then ask whether the noun in the blank owns something that follows. A plural names more than one; a possessive noun uses an apostrophe to show ownership.
Hints
- Hint 1
Expand any pronoun apostrophe into full words. Then reread the phrase beginning with “returned with.”
- Hint 2
Check the word after the noun in the blank. Does it name something belonging to that noun, or describe what that noun is like?
- Hint 3
Use the clause after the semicolon to count the parts. What does “two of them” tell you?
Step-by-step
Test the pronoun, then the noun
Step 1Expand the pronoun
Read the delivery drone returned with ______ loose: whose propellers does this describe? They belong to one drone, so the pronoun needs to show ownership. Its and it's both refer to one thing, but its shows ownership without an apostrophe, while it's means it is or it has. The versions with it's propellers and it's propeller's would give “with it is propellers” or “with it has propellers,” and neither fits the sentence.
- Step 2
Check whether the noun owns anything
Next, ask what comes after the noun in the blank: does loose name something the propellers own? No, it says the propellers are loose. A possessive noun uses an apostrophe to show ownership, while the pronoun its shows ownership without one. The drone returned with loose propellers, so its propeller's wrongly marks a propeller as an owner instead of naming the parts that were loose.
- Step 3
Count the propellers
The count comes from two of them had shifted during takeoff. What does them refer to? It points back to the propellers, so we need a plural noun, meaning a noun for more than one, even though there's only one drone. That noun is propellers, with -s and no apostrophe, which leads us to its propellers. Choice D.