What does the following line mean? "If ever you disturb our streets again, Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace." A: If the Capulets and Montagues fight in public again, the fighters will be put to death. B: If Romeo and Juliet are not allowed to get married, there will be a civil war in Verona. C: If any Capulet fights in Verona again, the entire family will be sent out of the country. D: If any Montague fights in Verona again, the entire family will be sent out of the country.

No the real answer is A: If the Capulets and Montagues fight in public again, the fighters will be put to death. I just took the test...

to eliminate ambiguous remote or broad reference it is necessary to focus on anaphoric reference. by definition "anaphoric reference means that a word in a text refers back to other ideas in the text for its meaning." the references should be clear and leave no room for ambiguity.

in the first case the pronoun it probably refers to the car but it has not been mentioned before so we should replace it for the car. in doing so the statement becomes clear.

in sentence number   two   the pronoun he refers to charles dickens the author. yet, the first half of the sentence is about the book a tale of two cities. to repair this it would be better to rephrase the first half : after i read   a tale of two cities by dickens, he so as to remove the remote reference.