Commonly Confused:  its and it's

 

Which word - "it's" or "its" - fits into each blank below?

 __________ a very beautiful country.

A country has to make ___________ citizens feel secure.


Here we continue with our unit on possessives. Possessive adjectives are commonly confused with other words and word forms.  In this lesson, we will help you to distinguish between a possessive adjective and these other forms.

This will help you with your reading comprehension and with your writing.

Let's first answer the question to define our terms: What is a contraction?

A contraction is a word that is formed when two words combine by eliminating a letter and using an apostrophe in place of the dropped letter.   One common contraction is "it's". In writing, the contraction it's is often confused with the possessive adjective its.

  • it's (he is) is a contraction formed by combining the subject pronoun it and the 2nd person form of the "be" verb is , and replacing the " i " of "is" with an apostrophe ' :  it + is › it's

  • its is a possessive adjective.

Exercise 10

 

  Exercise 10:  Its or It's - Possessive Adjective or Noun + Verb Contraction?

1)  If the bolded word is a possessive adjective, circle it.
2) If the bolded word is a noun + verb contraction, rewrite the sentence in the space provided with the noun and the verb as separate words.

1.   It's a very beautiful country.

2.  A country has to make its citizens feel secure.

Click here for the answers to this exercise.

Next...

 

In our next lesson, we discuss: Commonly Confused:  their, they're and there.

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