Question

Fill in the blank with a suitable pronoun:
The baby is crying. _______ must be hungry.
a. He
b. She
c. They
d. It

Answer 1

Hint: The option you select must be a third person singular subject pronoun.

Complete answer:
Pronouns are a set of words that are used to replace a noun or a name. Sometimes, when we talk about something, we may have to repeat a person’s name every time we talk about him / her. When we use pronouns, we eliminate this repetition and we make our sentences more concise and brief.

Let us look at an example.
Mia came back from school. Mia kept her bag in the foyer. Mia ate some snacks and eventually, Mia started doing her homework.

In the above example, Mia’s name is repeated so many times that we tend to develop an awkward disorientation from the sentence. Instead of using Mia’s name every time, we can replace it with the appropriate pronouns.
Mia came back from school. She kept her bag in her foyer. She ate some snacks and eventually, she started doing her homework.
In the above sentences, we have replaced Mia with the pronoun she that is used to represent female persons. This makes the sentences concise and straightforward.

Let us consider the given question-
The baby is crying. _______ must be hungry.
Here, we have to find a pronoun to indicate the baby. We do not know the gender of the baby. Hence, we cannot use the pronouns he or she. This leaves us with the neutral pronoun it. Therefore, option ’d’ is the correct answer.

Note: Always ensure that the subject and the pronoun match in terms of number and gender.