<p>I'm pretty sure I'm improving.. BUt I can never get the last three of improving sentences correct! Help me?</p>
<ol>
<li>The African tsetse tly does not need a "brain, everything" it has to do in life is programmed into its nervous system.</li>
</ol>
<p>a. brain, everything
b. brain due to everything which
c. brain, for everything
d. brain; since, everything
e. brain whereas everything</p>
<p>Answer: C</p>
<ol>
<li>She was concerned about how Hank would react to the incident, but "in searching his face, he did not seem to be" embarrassed or troubled.</li>
</ol>
<p>a. in searching his face, he did not seem to be
b. by searching his face, it showed that he was not
c. a search of his face showed that he seemed not
d. seaching his face, he did not seem to be
e. his face being searched showed that he was not</p>
<p>Answer: C</p>
<ol>
<li>Explaining modern art is impossible, partly because of its complexity, but largely because "of it rapidly changing".</li>
</ol>
<p>a. of it rapidly changing
b. it makes rapid changes
c. of the rapidity with which it changes
d. changing it is rapid
e. it changes so rapid</p>
<p>For 9, I’m guessing you realized right away that there needed to be SOMETHING in the middle … you couldn’t just leave it as brain,everything. You need a logical conjunction to link.</p>
<p>The others all lengthen the sentence and make it more convoluted than it already is, and “for” is the same meaning as “because”. It logically makes sense that the fly doesn’t need a brain, [because/for] blahblah nervous system.</p>
<ol>
<li>the only thing I can see that’s it’s staying in the same tense (not sure which one it is … present?) – a search of his face vs. in searching his face. the first part of the sentence doesn’t have “concerning hank’s face…” or something like that, so it doesn’t parallel with the second as it is.</li>
</ol>
<p>11… not sure of a rule for this. go by feel? lol. someone else answer that one.</p>
<p>The comma is wrong in A because there is no conjunction after the comma.
C corrects this error by putting ‘‘for’’,which is a conjunction(for means because), after the comma.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Clauses should be parallel. She was concerned… A search showed…
Searching is not a verb; it is a gerund.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Parallelism is the error in this sentence. Complexity is a noun, but rapid(adjective) is not. The only sentence that corrects this error is the one with ‘‘rapidity’’ because rapidity is also a noun.</p>
<p>I wonder if 10 is copied down correctly, because none of the answers generates a very good sentence.</p>
<p>It should be something like, “She was concerned about how Hank would react to the incident, but a search of his face showed that he seemed neither embarrassed nor troubled.” I just don’t like “seemed not embarrassed or troubled.” It would be a bit better if it were “seemed not to be embarrassed or troubled.”</p>
<p>For 9 you chose:
The African tsetse tly does not need a brain; since, everything it has to do in life is programmed into its nervous system.</p>
<p>You asked why this is “wrong”. There are two reasons. The first is the comma after since. It breaks up the clause, and that is not correct. The second reason is the use of the “;” rather than just a “,”. In the actual sentence “since” is a conjunction (with the same definition as “for”). It’s generally not good practice to start a sentence with a conjunction, although there are many exceptions to this “rule”.</p>
<p>So what is also correct:</p>
<p>The African tsetse fly does not need a brain, since everything it has to do in life is programmed into its nervous system.</p>
<p>But that wasn’t one of the choices.</p>
<p>Time permitting I’ll look at the other sentences (with explanations regarding your choices) later.</p>
<p>@Fogcity ,since is incorrect(I guess). Since starts a dependent clause.
Dependent clauses dont get seperated from the main clause by a comma unless they are at the beginning of the sentence.</p>
<p>The African tsetse fly does not need a brain since everything it has to do in life is programmed into its nervous system.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Since everything it has to do in life is programmed into its nervous system, the African tsetse fly does not need a brain</p>
<p>^^
Yes, I agree with realityisadream. The comma in my example using “since” is unnecessary.</p>
<p>For 10 you chose d. So the sentence becomes:</p>
<p>She was concerned about how Hank would react to the incident, but searching his face he did not seem to be embarrassed or troubled.</p>
<p>Read the sentence and ask “who does the searching”. It could easily be “he”. He could be searching his face. But the writer meant “she was searching his face”. There’s one too many pronouns and the sentence is not only awkward but also the references are ambiguous.</p>
<p>We can fix the ambiguity but making it clear that “she” searched his face. If we did that we’d get: “She was concerned about how Hank would react to the incident, but when she searched his face he did not seem to be embarrassed or troubled.” But that’s not one of the choices. The best choice is in a passive voice – avoiding a reference to the person who’s doing the face searching.</p>
<p>She was concerned about how Hank would react to the incident, but a search of his face showed that he seemed not to be embarrassed or troubled.</p>
<p>That’s correct, although perhaps not the best written sentence. The writer here is not too interested in letting us know who does the searching. But he doesn’t even try, so it’s okay.</p>
<p>Note that (a) and (b) have the same ambiguity as your choice (d), and that (e) is a clumsy way of saying (c).</p>