March SAT Writing No Errors

<p>I can't seem to find the original thread, so:</p>

<p>WHY are these both right? I picked "than do" and "not hinted at" as the errors.</p>

<p>"To deter plants and recover from insect damage, organically grown plants must produce higher levels of antioxidants THAN DO conventionally grown, pesticide treated plants."</p>

<p>"Most people only know T. E. Lawrence from his film, Lawrence of Arbaia, but Lawrence actually had many hobbies NOT HINTED AT in the film."</p>

<p>both are grammatically correct sentences. “than do” is fine lol. you need the comparison and the verb to maintain parallel structure. For T.E., the “not hinted at” is just a preposition. There is nothing wrong with it. just accept u made these two errors. u can still get an 800 with a 12.</p>

<p>

In this sentence, the word “do” represents “produce.” Here are different ways of rewriting the sentence:

… organically grown plants must produce higher levels of antioxidants than conventionally grown, pesticide treated plants do.</p>

<p>… organically grown plants must produce higher levels of antioxidants than conventionally grown, pesticide treated plants produce.
The sentence is comparing the levels of antioxidants that X produces to the levels of antioxidants that Y produces. So it’s essential to include “X produces” and “Y produces” in the comparison (not necessarily word-for-word, but as ideas).</p>

<p>Here are examples of this structure where the two objects of comparison use the same verb:
I run faster than he runs.</p>

<p>I eat better than he does.</p>

<p>The sisters drink a lot more water than the brothers do.</p>

<p>Rich kids generally do better in school than do impoverished kids.
And here is an example where the two objects of comparison use different verbs:
He is so slow; I walk faster than he runs.</p>

<p>For the second sentence, “to hint at” in the context of the sentence means “to suggest indirectly.” Here is the Dictionary.com entry (go to #6): [Hint</a> | Define Hint at Dictionary.com](<a href=“Hint]Hint Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com”>Hint Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com)</p>

<p>Thanks, Crazybandit. You calrified these two very well…next time, I’ll just be more wary of when things sound like bad English but are in fact gramatically correct. </p>

<p>lol when I was going thru the test, I was like "hm, I didn’t have a single ‘no error;’ and these were the 2 that I was closest to putting no error…Unfortunately, I just went with my gut feeling, which turned out to be wrong. </p>

<p>Annoyingaakash, ima get that 800W next time, haha</p>

<p>Isn’t the beginning of the first sentence unparallel?</p>

<p>You’re right. But oh well, it wasn’t one of the underlined parts. I didn’t even notice that; I’m pretty sure in this case it’s acceptable to not have parallel structure…it sounds fine anyway.</p>

<p>Parallel structure is rare in English. I don’t know why you think “To deter … and recover” has anything to do with parallelism. It’s just two verbs put together. The word to doesn’t need to be repeated. If you do repeat the to, then the phrase would mean something different. Plus parallel structure is sometimes a stylistic tool anyway, not always a means of identifying an error, so it’s not that important to always look for parallelism errors in sentences as if they’re so common (they’re not, a lot of times it’s just wishful thinking).</p>

<p>For example, To live in a mansion and to drive a fancy car is to live the dream suggests that the two actions are separate and one is enough for the dream to be satisfied: To live in a mansion is to live the dream, and, alternatively, although not mutually exclusively, to drive a fancy car is to live the dream . . . while To live in a mansion and drive a fancy car is to live the dream suggests that the two conditions are necessary together for the dream.</p>

<p>The only application of parallelism is in the To X is to Y construction, where two infinitives are needed (To run is exercising would be wrong while To run is to exercise would be right).</p>

<p>No, “To deter and recover” is not “unparallel.” Both are infinitives.
If it were, “To deter and recovering,” that would not be parallel.</p>

<p>ye post21398, tru that. The “to” is just implied, I guess.</p>