<p>I do not understand the answer to this question:</p>
<p>Along the curve of islands known as the Florida Keys lies a reef of living coral, the only one of a kind in the continental United States. </p>
<p>A. along
B. lies
C. the only one
D. a kind
E. no error</p>
<p>I do not understand why the answer to this question is D and not E? CAn someone explain the error and why it is D?</p>
<p>I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure WHY it is D, but I could tell it was D as soon as I read it. If you read it out loud it just sounds superfluous to the sentence.</p>
<p>I suppose it would have been clearer had it read "the only one of its kind," but the sentence appears fine as is.</p>
<p>Even if you knew no grammar at all, you should just feel that the answer was D after reading the sentence---it does not feel right at all.</p>
<p>The grammatical way of figuring is as follows. The phrase 'a kind' is referring to the reef of living coral and is saying that it is the only type of living coral in the U.S. Thus, it should be "the only one of its kind in the continental U.S." The phrase "the only one of a kind" doesn't sound right either, does it? It would sound right, I suppose, if there was a comma after only, making it "the only, one of a kind blahblahblah" as if it were an introduction.</p>
<p>It's suppose to be "one of its kind" I think it's like a idiom error but no sure.</p>
<p>Well, the sentence is grammatically correct, and saying the only one of "a kind" has a subtly different meaning than saying the only one of "its kind" (since "a" can refer to a wider superset of coral rather than the specimen's specific type). Since there is no logical or grammatical reason for stating that "a kind" is erroneous in the context, it's a terrible question.</p>
<p>Actually the phrase is modying "reef" which is singular. SOmething like that.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter whether reef is singular or plural. You could just as easily say "he is one of a kind" as you could "they are two of a kind."</p>
<p>Uhh...but it's not the S V PN structure you are talking about here. The above is more like DO, ADJ CL.</p>
<p>hmm, sounds familiar:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/418757-bb-writing-questions.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/418757-bb-writing-questions.html</a></p>
<p>and you'll find it here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/380106-consolidated-list-blue-book-writing-solutions-3rd-ed.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/380106-consolidated-list-blue-book-writing-solutions-3rd-ed.html</a></p>