<p>I'm going to give the answers, if someone could explain that would be great.</p>
<ol>
<li>IN the United States, the industrial USE OF plastics is greater THAN STEEL, aluminum, and copper combined.</li>
</ol>
<p>Answer is THAN STEEL.... </p>
<ol>
<li>The dolls in the collection, all more two hundred years old, had been carefully carved for children LONG SINCE gone.</li>
</ol>
<p>Why is this no error. "Long since" sounds so awkward. </p>
<p>IF WE COMPARE THE NUMBER OF ALLIGATORS WITH THE GILA MONSTER OVER TIME, WE SEE THAT THE ALLIGATOR IS in decline.</p>
<p>I said this is fine as is, but the BB gives me "A comparison over time of the numbers of alligators and Gila monsters shows that alligators are. Can anyone explain why the original sentence is incorrect?</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is classified as a problem with parallelism, but the problem is that the answer should be “than THAT OF steel.” This is because the “use OF plastics” is being compared to the use OF steel. So, the incorrect sentence is comparing “use of plastic” to “steel,” whereas it should be a comparison of the “use of plastics” to the "use of steel.</p>
<p>The problem with this sentence is the second part of the sentence (the part after the comma). The thing being compared in the first clause is the “NUMBER” of alligators and the “NUMBER” of gila monsters. The second clause should read, “we see that the NUMBER OF alligators is in decline” so that both clauses refer to the same thing.</p>
<p>1 and 3 is pretty much the same, ^ above poster pretty much nailed it. You gotta compare apples to apples. That said, in #3, you’re comparing number with monsters, which doesn’t really make sense. it should be number of alligator with the number of gila monster ~</p>
<p>2 it’s awkward but you can’t find any error can you? i remember seeing “long since” 2x from CB materials, so you should be able to spot it next time</p>
<ol>
<li>“Since” means “ago” in this case, so “long since” means “long ago.” The children were gone long ago. The centuries-old dolls had been carefully carved for children [who were] long since gone, children “long ago gone” or “gone long ago.”</li>
</ol>
<p>Here is a similar structure:
“The man has been sleeping for a long time.”
The man is sleeping. He has been sleeping for a long time.</p>
<p>“The children have been long since gone.”
The children are gone. They have been gone since long ago.</p>
<p>You call the man “a man sleeping for a long time.”
You call the children “children long since gone.”
“Gone” and “sleeping” are both participles acting as adjectives; they come from the verbs go and sleep.</p>
<p>You will improve if you keep working. That being said, my advice for you is to go back after you do a section and review. Examine all the questions you anwered incorrectly, and even the ones you got right;each question should be examined as to why the right answer is right and the other choices are wrong. I’ve done this and im getting to the point where I see a question and identify what ETS is testing(parallelism, subject-verb agreement, ambiguous pronouns, illogical comparisions, etc)</p>
<p>I used to have that problem, too. It takes a bit of effort to correct it. Now, when I read my friends’ Facebook posts, I find that error all the time. It’s a very common error, but it’s not difficult to correct.</p>