Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel The Poet X, winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature,...

Sentence Structure

• Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel The Poet X,
• winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature,
• is composed of [poems/poem's] putatively written by the [novel's/novels'] protagonist,
• fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

The sentence introduces us to:

• 'Slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel The Poet X'
  • We're talking about a specific novel - one novel called The Poet X
  • It was written by Elizabeth Acevedo, who is a slam poet

Then we get some extra information:

• 'winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature'
  • This is describing the novel - telling us it won an award

Now the sentence tells us what this novel is made of:

• 'is composed of...'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• Choice A: "poems putatively written by the novel's"
• Choice B: "poem's putatively written by the novel's"
• Choice C: "poem's putatively written by the novels'"
• Choice D: "poems putatively written by the novels'"

So we're deciding between:

• "poems" vs "poem's" (plural vs possessive)
• "novel's" vs "novels'" (singular possessive vs plural possessive)

To see what works here, let's read the complete phrase and understand what it's saying!

The complete phrase would be:

• "is composed of [blank] protagonist, fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista"

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• The novel is composed of something - multiple poems
  • A novel can be made up of many poems
  • So we need the plural "poems" (not possessive "poem's")
• These poems are "putatively written by the novel's protagonist"
  • "Putatively" means supposedly or allegedly
  • The protagonist is the main character
  • So within the novel, these poems are supposedly written by the main character
• That protagonist is identified as "fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista"

What do we notice about the structure here?

• For the first blank:
  • We need "poems" (plural) because the novel is COMPOSED OF multiple poems
  • Not "poem's" (possessive) - we're not talking about something belonging to a poem
• For the second blank:
  • We need "novel's" (singular possessive) because we're talking about the protagonist who belongs to THE novel - one specific novel (The Poet X)
  • Not "novels'" (plural possessive) - there's only one novel being discussed

So we need: "poems putatively written by the novel's protagonist"

The correct answer is Choice A.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Distinguishing Between Plural and Possessive Forms

One of the most important distinctions in English is knowing when to use an apostrophe and when not to. Here's the key difference:

Plural (no apostrophe): Use this when you're talking about more than one thing

• The poems are beautiful. (multiple poems)
• The novels won awards. (multiple novels)

Singular Possessive (apostrophe + s): Use this when one thing owns or is connected to something else

• The poem's rhythm is steady. (the rhythm belonging to one poem)
• The novel's protagonist is compelling. (the protagonist belonging to one novel)

Plural Possessive (s + apostrophe): Use this when multiple things own or are connected to something else

• The poems' themes varied. (themes belonging to multiple poems)
• The novels' protagonists all faced challenges. (protagonists belonging to multiple novels)

In this question:

• "poems" = plural (no apostrophe) ✓ because the novel is composed of multiple poems
• "novel's" = singular possessive ✓ because we're talking about the protagonist belonging to one novel

The sentence structure is:

• The novel is composed of poems (plural - multiple poems)
• These poems were written by the novel's protagonist (singular possessive - the protagonist belonging to the one novel)