Stupid though it may seem, many students mix up “It’s” and “Its”. Remember that the first one is short for “It is” or “it has”, whereas the second one is the possessive adjective. If we do so, we will avoid making mistakes such as: ” It’s tail is brown” ,when in fact, what we want to say is: “Its tail is brown” .
The rule to apply is that IT’S can always be expanded to IT IS / IT HAS, then you only have to make sure what you’ve written is what you really mean. Here are example sentences with it’s and its:
- The reef shark chases it’s prey through the coral. (This is wrong. It should be its. We don’t want to say it is or it has prey, so it must be the possessive adjective its.)
- It’s one of the hardest courses I’ve ever taken. (This one, on the contrary, is correct because I can expand it, I really mean it is)
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