Blue Book writing Q

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>The author, taking the reader on a chronological journey through her native land, skillfully combining history and legend with fragments of fiction.</p>

<p>B. The reader is taken on a chronological journey through the author's native land by skillfully </p>

<p>E. The author takes the reader on a chronological journey through her native land, skillfully
The book says it's E. I put B, because it removes the ambiguity of the second sentence (who's 'her'? The author or the reader?). I realize that B is passive voice, but it seems like passive voice would be better than an ambiguous sentence, since you at least can convey the meaning of the sentence in passive voice, which doesn't happen in E.</p>

2

<p>In B, it sounds like the reader is “skillfully combining history and legend with fragments of fiction” when really its the author doing that. Therefore, you have to place the correct noun before the verb. If you look through the writing section of the BB (I think chapter 10), it does a pretty good job of explaining this rule.</p>

3

<p>just wondering…but which BB are you using? The 2009 edition or older? (or is there a newer one? O__O)</p>

4

<p>This is exactly what I dealt with in my thread:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1184447-help-writing-mc-questions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1184447-help-writing-mc-questions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This way the problem is the opposite. Coincidentally, both of the questions are from the same test.</p>