Last PSAT Writting Question for me at least

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>A great performance of a play (both stimulates us to think and enlarges our capacity for feeling)</p>

<p>a. no error
b. both is a stimulus to our thinking and an enlargement of our capacity to feel
c. is both a stimulus to our thinking and enlarges our feeling capacity</p>

<p>I omitted the other 2 choices because they were obviously wrong.</p>

<p>I narrowed it down to "a" and "b"</p>

<p>I thought "a" should have been "stimulated us to think and enlarges our capacity "to" feel. but apparently "a" is right...</p>

<p>Can someone explain why "a" is right and "b" is wrong... Much appreciated.</p>

2

<p>im not too sure about the idiom “capacity..for”
anyway B is also wrong in that “both is…and an…” ,which should hav been "is both a…and an…</p>

3

<p>yea…I should have realized it should have been “is both a” for answer “b”</p>

<p>good job Ren…thanks.</p>

4

<p>i think i got it wrong cuz “both stimulates” sounds right in answer “a”</p>

<p>and so i tuned it out wen i read “both is a..” for answer “b”</p>

<p>so grammatically…u cannot say…"the performance both was a success and annoying…idk… It’s “was both a success and annoying”… ok it sounds clear now. thanks.</p>

5

<p>hm, i think ur example sentence would be better if it’s
–was both a success and an annoying event.–
success and annoying are diff parts of speeches, ETS usually make them parallel.
anyway, i think its still correct to say --Both was-- its just that u need to complement it in the --and-- clause or phrase w/e
so —Both is.. And is— ahh that’s awkward lol, anyway i haven’t seen something like that, but hey, it tests mostly parallelism =p</p>

6

<p>ooooooooooo</p>

<p>so the correct phrase is "Both is…And is…</p>

<p>ok. so it should have been “both is a stimulus to our thinking and is an enlargement of our capacity to feel.”</p>

<p>Choice A is correct because of the parallel structure of the “both stimulates…and enlarges”</p>

7

<p>C is obviously wrong - first, the phrase isn’t parallel, and if you take it apart (“…is enlarges our…”), it doesn’t make sense. I didn’t know about the “both is…and is” idiom, but in general, pick the choice with fewer nouns - it’s probably more concise and to the point, similar to how passive voice choices aren’t normally the answer.</p>

8

<p>cn31808, what do you mean it “isn’t parallel?”</p>

9

<p>^read my post</p>

10

<p>Haha sorry Ren, I still don’t understand what you were saying.</p>

11

<p>why JP understood then? =[</p>

12

<p>I don’t understand “success and annoying are diff parts of speeches, ETS usually make them parallel.”</p>

<p>I can’t quite figure out what you mean by “parallel” in that context.</p>

13

<p>oh sorry that was my bad, i was refering to post #4, if u look at his sentence, then u’ll see what i mean by diff parts of speech; the one i have should be an answer that ETS wants.</p>