Question

The apostrophe is a widely misused punctuation mark. In proper usage, the apostrophe indicates either a possessive case or where a letter or letters have been removed. An apostrophe is used to indicate a plural in only one special case—when there is a lowercase letter that is plural, such as in the phrase mind your p’s and q’s. Select the sentence that violates the guidelines for apostrophes. All employees must wash their hands before returning to work. Any employee who doesn't will be warned for the first offense or be fined for each subsequent offense. The restaurants reputation and success depending on keeping a high healthy rating. Please help us keep our health department rating in the high 90s.

Answer 1

I just took the test, the correct answer is .. “All employee’s must wash their hands before returning to work.”

Answer 2

The sentence that contains a mistake with the use of apostrophe is "The restaurants reputation and success depending on keeping a high healthy rating."

In this case, there are two possible answers to indicate a possessive case:

1) an apostrophe should be placed after the word "restaurant's" if it refers to one restaurant only

"The restaurant's reputation and success depending (depend) on keeping a high healthy rating."

2) an apostrophe should be placed after the word "restaurants' " if it refers to restaurants in general

"The restaurants' reputation and success depending (depend) on keeping a high healthy rating."

The rest of the sentences does not violate the rules of apostrophe usage.