Water in the North Atlantic Ocean is pushed eastward by powerful winds, but the rotation of Earth and interference from...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Water in the North Atlantic Ocean
  • is pushed eastward by powerful winds,
• but the rotation of Earth and interference from nearby landmasses together
  • cause [?]
    • to swirl into a massive, churning whirlpool
      • —also called the North Atlantic Gyre—
    • that spins clockwise.

• [?] = these/those/them/it

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

• 'Water in the North Atlantic Ocean is pushed eastward by powerful winds'
  • This tells us about water movement - the water is pushed toward the east by winds.

Now the sentence continues with a contrast:

• 'but the rotation of Earth and interference from nearby landmasses together cause ____'

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• these/those/them/it
  • These are all pronouns - words that refer back to nouns mentioned earlier.

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

• The blank leads to: 'to swirl into a massive, churning whirlpool—also called the North Atlantic Gyre—that spins clockwise.'

Now let's understand what the whole sentence is telling us:

• The sentence sets up a contrast:
  • FIRST: Water is pushed eastward by winds
  • BUT: Earth's rotation and landmasses cause [something] to swirl into a whirlpool

• What's being caused to swirl?
  • It must be the water!
  • The water is what's moving - first pushed one way, then caused to swirl into the gyre.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We need a pronoun that refers back to "water"
  • "Water" is the thing being acted upon throughout the sentence

• "Water" is singular in this context
  • It's treated as one body of water (not countable individual waters)
  • Even though it's a mass noun, it takes singular agreement

• Looking at our choices:
  • "these" = plural
  • "those" = plural
  • "them" = plural
  • "it" = singular ✓

So we need "it" - the singular pronoun that correctly refers back to the singular noun "water."

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Matching Pronouns to Their Antecedents in Number

When you use a pronoun to refer back to a noun (called the antecedent in grammar terms), the pronoun must match that noun in number - singular pronoun for singular noun, plural pronoun for plural noun.

Pattern:

• Singular antecedent + singular pronoun:
  • The scientist published her findings.
  • "Scientist" (singular) → "her" (singular) ✓

• Plural antecedent + plural pronoun:
  • The scientists published their findings.
  • "Scientists" (plural) → "their" (plural) ✓

Special note about mass nouns:

• Some nouns like "water," "information," "evidence" are treated as singular even though they represent uncountable quantities
  • The water froze. It turned to ice.
  • "Water" → "it" (both singular) ✓

In this question:

• "Water in the North Atlantic Ocean" (singular) → "it" (singular) ✓
• The pronoun "it" correctly matches its singular antecedent "water"