Ambiguous antecedent
SAT glossary · Course Foundations
Definition
A pronoun with two possible referents ('When Priya met Alessandra, she had already published…'), which the test punishes even when the sentence is grammatical. When two same-gender antecedents are available, only a name disambiguates; wordy dodges like 'the latter one' still force the reader to reconstruct.
Ambiguous antecedent in plain English
An 'ambiguous antecedent' is what happens when a pronoun (like 'she' or 'he' or 'it') could sensibly refer back to more than one earlier noun, leaving the reader genuinely unsure who or what is meant. In a sentence like 'When Priya met Alessandra, she had already published a novel,' the word 'she' could mean either Priya or Alessandra — and the test marks this as wrong even though the sentence is perfectly grammatical, because clarity matters, not just grammar rules. When two people of the same gender are both available as options, only actually using someone's NAME fixes the problem — a vague workaround phrase like 'the latter one' still forces the reader to stop and mentally figure out who that refers to, so it doesn't really solve anything.
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