<h2>Got an 800 this section! wahoo. gotta do it again in a week</h2>
<p>1.
Salaries rose, and [yet] the older, self made men retained ownership of the newspapers</p>
<h2>Apparently there is something wrong with this sentence? How does "and yet" function? As a normal coordinating conjunction? </h2>
<p>2.</p>
<p>Researchers have found that large fish [are more likely to contain high levels of mercury]
compared to small fish</p>
<p>Researchers have found that large fish [are more likely than small fish to contain high levels of mercury] compared to small fish</p>
<p>the second version is the correct version.</p>
<p>Why is the first wrong? The only reason why I chose the second was because I recognized the "More...Than" phrase. Is More... compared to incorrect? </p>
“yet” has a contrasting function. The sentence is not trying to contrast anything. It is expressing cause and effect. The fact that salaries went up means that older, self-made men could afford to keep ownership of the newspapers. You have to use a word like “so” to denote this cause-effect relationship:
INCORRECT: Salaries rose, and yet they could afford to keep ownership of their newspapers.</p>
<p>CORRECT: Salaries rose, and so they could afford to keep ownership of their newspapers.
“and yet” isn’t a coordinating conjunction; it’s a phrase with a coordinating conjunction (“and”) and an adverb (“yet”). “yet” can be a coordinating conjunction itself, as in I locked the front door, yet when I came home it was unlocked, but it can also be an adverb, in this case meaning “nevertheless”: *Salaries rose, and yet they lost their jobs<a href=“%5Bi%5DSalaries%20rose,%20and%20nevertheless%20they%20lost%20their%20jobs%5B/i%5D”>/i</a>. “and yet” where “yet” is an adverb is very similar to “yet” as a coordinating conjunction.
It is technically not incorrect to say Bart is taller compared to Lisa, in my opinion (some disagree and think you need the “than”), but it is incorrect on the SAT in that it is clumsy and significantly worse (as the College Board would peg it, “wordy”) than Bart is taller than Lisa. So remember on the SAT it is wrong to say “more . . . compared to” instead of “more . . . than.” That’s pretty much all you need to know.</p>