17a. Each of the applicants must submit his or her completed form to the interviewer.
17b. Each of the applicants must submit their completed forms to the interviewer.
I chose A. is that right? please explain.
A is correct -- "each" is a singular word; therefore, any pronoun that refers to it needs to be singular also. (The word "their" is obviously plural.)
Thank you
In this case, option B is the correct choice.
The reason is that "each of the applicants" is a singular subject, so it requires a singular pronoun to be consistent. In option A, using "his or her" is grammatically correct, but it is considered more formal and can be quite wordy. Option B, on the other hand, uses the plural pronoun "their," which has become widely accepted and commonly used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun when the gender of the subject is unknown or irrelevant.
To confirm your answer, you can analyze the sentence and identify the subject and verb. The subject in both options is "each of the applicants," which is singular. Therefore, the pronoun that follows should also be singular to maintain subject-verb agreement. Since "their" is a plural pronoun, it is used as a singular pronoun in this context, allowing for gender neutrality.
So, in summary, option B is the preferred choice as it promotes gender neutrality and maintains subject-verb agreement.