<p>Not one (A)of the doctors(A) are treating my sister (B)know(B) exactly what (C)is wrong(C) with (D)her(D) her. (E)No Error(E).</p>
<h2>This one I thought was A because Not one of the doctors are treating my sister sounds wrong, but apparently the answer key says I was wrong.</h2>
<p>The editor (A)had intended to invite(A) both (B)you and me(B) to write for his newspaper;(C)however(C), (D)because of space constraints(D), only one of us can submit an article. (E)No Error(E).</p>
<h2>This one, I had a much more serious issue with. I picked A, because I thought had+verb is only used to describe past events in past tense. However, the tense of the sentences seems present to me (only one of us CAN submit). I'm not sure why the answer is not A.</h2>
<p>History Textbooks are the only testimony to the fact that trains were once a popular method of (begin underline)travel, but they have become all but extinct since then(end underline).</p>
<p>A. As is
B. travel, but they are now all but extinct.
C. travel, and have since become all but extinct
D. travel that has since become all but extinct
E. travel since becoming all but extinct.</p>
<p>The Answer key said that they referred to the textbooks and thus any choice but D would be wrong because they won't make sense since they imply that textbooks are extinct. My question is, though, how should I know that "they" in "but they have become..." is supposed to be referring to textbooks? Can't it be logical and gramatically correct that "they" also refer to the "trains" as well. Is there any specific rule regarding antecedent referral that I should know?</p>
<p>1) It should be “Not one of the doctors treating my sisters KNOWS…” because “one” is technically your subject, and it’s singular. The College Board likes to stick prepositional phrases in between your subject and verb to throw you off, so I’ve found that it helps to underline the subject and verb and cross out any prepositional phrases in between, just so you have an extra safety net. It’s easier to catch tricky errors that way.</p>
<p>2) With this one, my guess is that, since “The editor had intended to invite…” is in the past perfect, they want you to change it to simply the past tense. This is because the past perfect (e.g., “had” + past tense verb) is used to compare two events that happened in the past, and “can submit an article” is in the present tense.</p>
<p>Note: I don’t recall ever encountering something like this on the SAT.</p>
<p>3) This isn’t really a great explanation on my part, but here it goes: Since “textbooks” is the subject of the first independent clause in that sentence (and everything that comes after it in the clause elaborates on textbooks), the “they” at the beginning of the following independent clause seems to refer to “textbooks”. In this case, we assume that the pronoun acting as the subject of the second independent clause is replacing the subject from the first independent clause, not “trains”.</p>
<p>If anyone wants to clarify/correct me, please do so, especially on #3.</p>
<p>The first sentence, I really think there should be a “who” in front of “are treating my sister” or else the sentence itself won’t make sense. So the sentence should read “Not one (A)of the doctors(A) who are treating my sister (B)know(B) exactly what (C)is wrong(C) with (D)her(D) her. (E)No Error(E).” Alright, here, I know why you wanted to say A, but that part is fine because it’s part of “doctors who are treating” because doctors is plural and hence you need that “are” </p>
<p>The second sentence. Technically “had + verb (participle)” is used when you’re talking about more than one thing happening the past, and you want to show one happened before the other. So, I totally agree with you that this is not a good question. But having said that, don’t over think something into a tense shift because you can be talking about something in the past and present in one sentence as long as you use adequate context. For example, “Yesterday it was raining; however, today it is very sunny.” And tying bit back to the your question, it could be that the context of the sentence is that you are standing in front of your friend telling him/her that only one can submit the article and framing a past context for what the editor said/intended.</p>
<p>Third question… alright, I’m beginning to think you should use a different book to study. You’re absolutely right in that you can make context point out the right word it’s referring to. But there are rules, and the main one i can remember off the top of my head is something like “Bill and Bob went to school, but he forgot his lunch money.” in this case, both Bill and Bob are guys, so “he” could refer to both. you can’t use context. If a person unfamiliar with situation just reads the sentence and it could be argued both ways, then you can’t do that.</p>