<p><em>as is commonly believed</em></p>
<p>so did a bunch of other people</p>
<p>i put "as is commonly believed"...</p>
<p>ok, sounds good</p>
<p>Swimmers rub grease on their bodies not to keep themselves warm, as is commonly believed, but to reduce friction.</p>
<p>^something seems wrong, this looks better to me:</p>
<p>Swimmers rub grease on their bodies not to keep themselves warm as is commonly believed, but to reduce friction.</p>
<p>You've got a misplaced comma in the <em>as is commonly believed</em> answer.</p>
<p>Or this is good too:</p>
<p>Despite a common belief, swimmers rub grease on their bodies not to keep themselves warm but to reduce friction.</p>
<p>which translates into this:</p>
<p>Swimmers rub grease on their bodies not to keep themselves warm, despite a common belief, but to reduce friction.</p>
<p>So i think <em>despite a common belief</em> is better.</p>
<p>swimmers rub grease on their bodies NOT to keep themselves warm, AS IS COMMONLY BELIEVED </p>
<p>sounds much better than</p>
<p>Swimmers rub greasy on their bodies NOT to keep themselves warm, despite a common belief.</p>
<p>Not, despite a? Isn't that a bit redundant?</p>
<p>no, it's not redundant:</p>
<p>the common belief is that swimmers do it to keep themselves warm,
so:</p>
<p>despite the common belief, swimmers do not do it to keep themselves warm.</p>
<p>With the as is commonly believed, the comma is misplaced, that's what's wrong with it.</p>
<p>yes, you all keep rearanging the sentence to be read as</p>
<p>Despite the common belief, swimmers do not rub grease on their bodies to keep themselves warm.</p>
<p>I am not going to argue with THAT sentence, that is completely fine. The fact that you have to rearange a sentence to make it sound better is the problem.</p>
<p>I rearranged it to show that the original sentence was gramatically correct. Personally, <em>despite a common belief</em> sounds fine to me.</p>
<p>What I think is wrong with <em>as is commonly believed</em> is the comma.</p>
<p>Swimmers rub grease on themselves not to keep their bodies warm, as is commonly believed,.... </p>
<p>is wrong, because when you take that <em>as is commonly believed</em> clause out and put it in the beginning, the sentence is gramatically incorrect. When you put commas on the beginning and end of a phrase, you are saying in terms of grammar that you can move that phrase around the sentence w/o messing up the grammar. but:</p>
<p>Swimmers rub grease on themselves not to keep their bodies warm as is commonly believed,.... </p>
<p>would be correct because you are not specifying that <em>as is commonly believed</em> is one of those phrases (independent clause? idk) with the commas. Here, <em>as is commonly believed</em> is a subordinate conjucntion (?), so it is okay.</p>
<p>However, with <em>despite a common belief</em>, the phrase is independent. You can move it around (place it in the beginning, or in the middle. i don't mean move it around between 2 random words) and still retain grammatic accuracy. That's why <em>despite a common belief</em> is correct.</p>
<p>"As is commonly believed" is obviously the correct answer choice. The SAT Writing does not only test grammar, but style. Grammatically both choices work in the current, not-rearranged sentence, but "as is commonly believed" sounds much better.</p>
<p>was "as is commonly believed" without the first comma even a choice? or was only ", as is commonly believed," a choice?</p>
<p>I iz a gramer expert fo sho dat sheeit; mssr lymen be sayin; be in corect ryt thurr: n1gga fo sho na mean</p>
<p>kurby y is u be tlakin shyyyyyyyyyyt foo</p>
<p>dat shyet yankie and junky be sayin is PHIMP...na mean</p>
<p>BLAK POWR</p>
<p>haha, the PSAT pimp knows what he's saying.</p>
<p>he said i'm right...are you dumb?</p>
<p>No, Yankees fan, he said I'm right:</p>
<p>mssr lymen be sayin; be in corect ryt thurr: n1ga fo sho na mean.</p>
<p>Wow, are you dumb, Mr. Layman?
"dat sheeit; mssr lymen be sayin; be in corect"
in corect=incorrect...unless I'm making some kind of translation error here...doubt it, though. He definitely said what you were saying is incorrect.</p>
<p>he called you a shyet... hahahaha. jk</p>
<p>ok ok ok, i can't read ghetto talk. i still say i'm right though.</p>
<p>you keep on telling yourself that...we'll see in december when everybody else on this forum gets that question correct</p>
<p>be in corect = being correct?</p>
<p>idk</p>
<p>ghetto talk is as ambiguous as PSAT's.</p>
<p>Stop calling me dumb, man!</p>
<p>ok........</p>