Question

Choose the best option to fill in the blank:
My sister and I can cook and thus we can look after _____ when our mother is away.
A) Ourselves
B) Ourself
C) We
D) Us

Answer 1

Hint: To solve questions with very long sentences, we must first break the sentence down into clauses. The three clauses in this sentence are ‘my sister and I can cook’, ‘we can look after _____’ and ‘our mother is away’. Now we can analyze the clauses as individual sentences.

Complete answer:
In the given sentence, we have three clauses. Our blank is located in the second clause, and hence we shall analyze the second clause. This clause has the subject ‘we’, the verb ‘look after’ and ‘blank’ which needs to be filled with a noun or a pronoun so that it becomes the object of the sentence.

Let us analyze the given options:
Option A) Ourselves – The word ‘ourselves’ is a reflexive form of the pronoun ‘we’. It is used when the first person and another person together cause and are affected by an action. For e.g. We just want to relax and enjoy ourselves. Thus, this is the correct option.
Option B) Ourself – This word is an incorrect form of the word ‘ourselves’. The correct word is always ‘ourselves’ and not ‘ourself’ because it is always plural. Therefore, it is a wrong word and wrong option to fill in the blank with.
Option C) We – ‘We’ is a pronoun used to indicate the plural first person and it is used as the subject in a sentence. For e.g. We lost the game at the last moment. To fill in the blank we need to use the reflexive form of the pronoun ‘we’ and not the pronoun directly. Thus, this option is wrong.
Option D) Us – ‘Us’ is also a pronoun used to indicate the plural first person, but it is used as the object of the sentence. For e.g. They told us to leave the place immediately. Therefore, this option is also incorrect as it is not a reflexive form.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (A) i.e, My sister and I can cook and thus we can look after ourselves when our mother is away.

Note: The given question was from the topic of reflexive pronouns. Reflexive pronouns are pronouns that end in self or selves. These are used only in sentences where the subject itself is the object. They may act as direct or indirect objects. Words like himself, myself, herself are always used in the singular form and themselves, ourselves are always used in the plural form.