Identifying Antecedent Quiz

Type the antecedent for each of the underlined pronouns. Type only one word; exclude any modifiers. Be sure to spell the words correctly.

A Good Unlucky Day

Ben walked with (1) his newspaper in one hand and (2) his coffee in the other. The day was off to a good beginning. The building that Ben worked in burned down. During the night, the firefighters tried to save (3) it, but (4) they were bored with fighting fires. They almost had the fire out when the chief of the department just walked away. (5) He said in a gloomy voice, as he put down his equipment, "What's the point of putting out this fire when there will be one just like (6) it later tonight?" He made it seem so depressing, and really he was expressing what the other men had felt for a long time but were incapable of putting into words. Once it was put into words for (7) them, they too gave up. Two went home and asked (8) their wives for a divorce, thinking there really was no point in that either. One vowed never to eat again, figuring that whatever (9) he ate wouldn't be any different from the previous 38,325 meals he had eaten. Those meals had gotten him nowhere, he thought. Another guy went home to bed and promised (10) himself that he would never make his bed.

Normally, waking up to find out one doesn't have a job anymore because of bad philosophy on the part of some tired firefighters would be depressing. And at first Ben was saddened. But then (11) he remembered that Robert, (12) his colleague in the office down the hall, had been blackmailing him with a picture of him riding a unicycle. Vehicles with fewer than four wheels had been outlawed the year before. And a vehicle with only one wheel on (13) it was seen by the government as extremely subversive and dangerous. Ben had a bad habit of riding (14) his unicylce. His wife had pleaded with him to incinerate the silly thing, but (15) she could never talk any sense into Ben.

Luckily, the picture of Ben was safely locked in Robert's desk on the seventeenth floor which was now in the form of ash somewhere in what was the basement. (16) It was gone forever. And Ben would never have to sing lullabies to Robert, fearing that if (17) he didn't, Robert would turn him in.