<p>Hi, I have a question.
Is the following sentence wrong ?</p>
<p>Germany was divided into two, hard of it was free and half was under communist rule.</p>
<p>I think the sentence sounds OK. Is its punctuation correct ?</p>
<p>Is there any exception to the punctuation rules in the SAT ?</p>
<p>which is true ?</p>
<ul>
<li>The quote “The death of democracy will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment,” is relevant to my math class.</li>
<li>The quote**,** “The death of democracy will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment,” is relevant to my math class.</li>
</ul>
<p>Which is true ?
<p>Which are true ? According to the standard written English ? According to the “daily writing” rule ? Are they accepted in the SAT ? in college essay ?
Are they serious errors ?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Also is this correct ?</p>
<p>As the days lengthened and the weather became warm, we could spend more time playing football on the Uncle Tom’s field.</p>
<p>"Which is true ?
<p>The second one is true. You are supposed to use ‘as if’ in this case. </p>
<p>“Germany was divided into two, hard of it was free and half was under communist rule.”</p>
<p>I suppose ‘hard’ should be ‘half’? I believe there is an error in the punctuation. IMO, it should be “Germany was divided into two**:** half of it was free and half was under communist rule.”</p>
<p>"which is true ?</p>
<ul>
<li>The quote “The death of democracy will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment,” is relevant to my math class.</li>
<li>The quote, “The death of democracy will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment,” is relevant to my math class."</li>
</ul>
<p>I believe the first one is true. I really don’t think there should be a coma before the actual quote. It’s a specific quote, there is no need for it to be put between comas.
Hope this helps.</p>
<p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I would have said the second is correct. I think unless the quote fits directly into the sentence, you need to place a comma before and after the quote (e.g. ‘Expecting a “brilliant welcome” from the warm and beautiful Venice of his memories […]’ you wouldn’t need to place commas before “brilliant welcome.”)</p>
<p>Not sure if that explanation makes sense…</p>
<p>
Is the ‘like’ one acceptable in the SAT?</p>
<p>
I would like to ask you if this kind of question will be tested in the SAT. Thank you very much.</p>
<p>
How about this one?</p>
<p>And I have a final question.
I’m not American, so I don’t have a background about this. But I really want my writting to meet the standard of written English. If I go to college, will teachers teach me about those grammar rules?</p>
<p>
Using “like” is more colloquial I think, more casual/informal. Generally in written works, with the exception of dialogue, you would tend to stick with more formal phrases (e.g. “as if” instead of “like”)</p>
<p>
Personally, I would change the sentence to:
As the days grew long and the weather became warm, we could spend more time playing football on Uncle Tom’s field. (omitting “the” before “Uncle Tom”) –> parallelism between “grew long” and “became warm,” as opposed to “lengthened” and “became warm”
I don’t know if your professors necessarily will, unless you are taking a writing course (even then I’d assume the focus is more on the ideas than on the grammar), but most if not all colleges have some sort of student writing centre you can go to to improve your writing.</p>