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<li>The news that the house was no longer for sale came as a disappointment to him, in that he had been excited to have the opportunity to buy the house for his wife as a wedding present. (Underlined from ''as'' to ''opportunity'')</li>
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<p>a. Original sentence
b. as a disappointment to him; he having had the opportunity
c. to him as a disappointment; having been excited as to have had the opportunity
d. disappointed him; he had been excited
e. to him as a disappointment, in that he was excited for the opportunity</p>
<p>-I picked A here, but the correct answer is D. Why?</p>
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<li>Except for you and me, everyone bought a ticket to the concert. (underlined from ''except'' to ''bought'')</li>
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<p>a. Original sentence
b. Except for you and I, everyone bought
c. With the exception of you and I, everyone bought
d. Except for you and me, everyone have bought
e. Everyone except you and I bought</p>
<p>-I picked E here, but the correct answer is A. Why?</p>
<p>1.) I think the underlining you have is wrong, otherwise the sentence will make no sense. Check that again. If it is underlined starting at came than D makes sense because it avoids a comma splice, like in the others.
2.) E is wrong because if you takes away “you and” you get except I which is incorrect, there is nothing wrong with the sentence.</p>
<p>except always follows an objective subjective like “me”</p>
<p>although option d has “me” in it, “everyone” is singular, thus it would be “has bought” not “have bought”</p>
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<li>Just a simple past tense question - Remember, part of the SAT prompt for these types of problems is to reduce wordiness.
From wikipedia:
The continuous aspect is constructed by using a form of the copula, “to be”, together with the present participle (marked with the suffix -ing).[4] It is generally used for actions that are actively on-going at the time in question, and does not focus on the larger time-scale. For example, the sentence “Andrew was playing tennis when Jane called him.” indicates what Andrew was doing when Jane called him, but does not indicate for how long Andrew played, nor how often he plays; for that, the simple past would suffice: “Andrew played tennis three hours every day for several years.”</li>
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<p>If that doesn’t help, maybe someone else could do a better job explaining :)</p>
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<li>In this sentence, the speaker functions as the object, not the subject.
Imagine rewriting the sentence (in its original grammar) as "Everyone bought a ticket to the concert except for me.
It’s easier to see here that the phrase “except for” is a preposition, and therefore the object pronoun “me” is the object of the prepositional phrase “except for”.</li>
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