Question

Spot the error in the following sentence.

The Pickerel frog should be avoided as the secretions from their skin are lethal to animals and irritating to humans.

• A. avoided
• B. their
• C. lethal to animals
• D. irritating

Hint:

Check whether the pronoun matches the number of its antecedent, "The Pickerel frog".

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Step 1: Find the antecedent of the pronoun.
The sentence begins with "The Pickerel frog", which is one single animal, named in the singular form.

Step 2: Check what pronoun stands in for it later.
Later the sentence says "secretions from their skin". The word "their" is used here to point back to the frog mentioned earlier.

Step 3: Apply the pronoun-antecedent agreement rule.
A pronoun must always match the number of the noun it replaces. Since "The Pickerel frog" is singular, the correct pronoun should also be singular, which is "its", not the plural "their".

Step 4: Rule out the remaining choices.
"Avoided" is a correctly formed passive verb, "lethal to animals" and "irritating" both correctly describe the effects of the secretions and carry no grammar fault.

Final Answer:
The error sits in the pronoun "their", which should be "its" to agree with the singular "Pickerel frog". This makes option (b) correct.