<p>can any one tell me why "indecisive" is used incorrectly in the following sentence: "Despite the attorney's moving plea, the judge placed the juvenile offender on probation for an INDECISIVE period."</p>
<p>Was this one of those "spot the mistake" questions?</p>
<p>maybe this is correct:</p>
<p>indecisive is an adjective, which means it describes nouns: "the indecisive student"</p>
<p>period as used in this context is also an adjective, describing a particular point in time.</p>
<p>to make this sentence correct, "indicisive period" must me replaced with "undecided period of time."</p>
<p>No, period is a noun in this sense because it is an interval of time.</p>
<p>Maybe it's just wordy, and rather than "indecisive period" they just want "temporarily." That's my best bet.</p>
<p>hehe, I think all the smart CC people are asleep. Those geeks!</p>
<p>"Indecisive" makes no sense here. The correct answer is "undecided". That's word choice problem.</p>
<p>The SAT often supplants words with words that are similar phonetically, but not semantically (i.e. eminent v. imminent). This question is a prime example of that; the word indecisive is erroneously replacing the correct word, "indefinite." What's more, a period of time cannot be indecisive, only living things can...pretty simple.</p>
<p>a period of time is a noun, but it is not a living thing. indecisive is an adjective used to describe a personality, and therefore a living thing. its usage is similar to that of anxious, hungry, angry, perplexed, etc. using any of those words to describe a period of time is awkward at best.</p>
<p>i've got a few more questions
a) "BEFORE LEAVING the Norewgian theater, his dramatic themes began to change..."
Why is "before leaving" wrong? Instead the sentence shoudl read "Before he left"
b) "He began to explore the inner lives of those whose personal philosophies were CONVENTIONALLY ODD."
I thought the sentence was fine, but the phrase shoudlb e substituted for "at odds with convention." anyone explain?
c) "Such works are thought to reflect his own regret AT HAVING devoted his life to this work, to the exclusion of close personal relationships."
Is there anythign wrong with that phrase? Or shoudl be changed to "to have" or "from having" or "by having?" If not, again, can you explain to me?</p>
<p>The first is wrong because it uses the imperfect when the proper tense for the sentence is preterite. You really don't need to understand that at a deeper level; it's easiest just to remember that more often than not (if you can't find another error but you feel like the sentence is still awkward/probably wrong) the mistake is a gerund, in this case "leaving", where there shouldn't be one.
The mistake in the second is fairly simple; the phrase conventionally odd makes absolutely no sense. It's like saying..normally odd. It's an oxymoron that just doesn't work.
The third, quite frankly, has got me a little tripped up. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say it's correct as is. You don't have an answer key for this? Where did you get the question from?</p>
<p>For the third sentence, it's definitely not "by having". The first suggestion seems very akward and the second suggestion still akward. With those four choices I would leave it as is.</p>
<p>is the third one an idiom question? if it is, i would think the answer would be "for having" although of the choices listed, "from having" sounds most correct.</p>