<p>@magicjane @Niceboat</p>
<p>The answer is D.</p>
<p>But one thing I don’t understand is that why the author used the phrase “giddy peril”? “Peril” sounds like they(the son and the dad) are going to be involved in something dangerous. That’s why I can’t decide on C or D. Also, I didn’t read that the son experienced “unaccustomed” freedom. The author only says that he and his dad were doing things that might be called as wild, crazy…so much freedom.</p>
<p>@Mr Mustard</p>
<p>The correct answer was b) because the sentence needs to keep its parallelism.</p>
<p>(a)thinking about who is the best quarterback rather than who should be president.</p>
<p>(b) focusing us on questions like who is the best quarterback rather than who is the best presidential candidate.</p>
<p>a) “who is the best quarterback” is not parallel with “who should be president”. Since you have the “best” in the first one, you should change the second one to include “the best” or any of its synonyms, hence “the best presidential candidate”.</p>
<p>b) “things” is ok because it is referring to issues outside of sports (as demonstrated with “the best presidential candidate”)</p>
<p>I hope this addresses all your issues in this particular question :).</p>
<p>I have two more questions… 
<p>Why does “situating” have to be “situated”?</p>
<p>and
2. Although talent may be a crucial element on the road to fame,
a. it is difficult to succeed without a highly developed work ethic
b. without a highly developed work ethic, succeeding is difficult.
The answer for the 2nd question is B. Why is A wrong?
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Creative business stratagems frequently become ------ as a result of ----, their versatility and adaptability destroyed by their transformation into rigid policies.</p>
<p>A. streamlined…infighting
B. mitigated…jingoism
C. ossified…bureaucratization
D. politicized…innovation
E. venerable…legislation</p>
<p>I suck at CR and this one just totally confused me. Can someone help me on how to approach it? Also what are tips to improve CR score. Right now it is terrible, I own the blue book and have been practicing out of there. Im am taking the January SAT, so much help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Below questions are from Oct 2008 QAS</p>
<ol>
<li>Time after time, I have witnessed cities and other environments become asphalt encrusted as the urge to hold the cars of shoppers or home owners has taken primacy. As economist David Shoup summed it up, “Form no longer follows function, fashion, or even finance. Instead, form follows parking requirements.” </li>
</ol>
<p>The tone of Shoup can be best described as
A. Wry
B. Despondent
C. Earnest
D. Repentant
E. Laudatory</p>
<p>A or B? Why? </p>
<p>I feel both A and B are very subtle. It’s clearly that no clear evidence shows that Shoup is despondent, but from the passage I infer that Shoup’s remark expresses undesirability. On the other hand, I can hardly detect a wry tone. </p>
<ol>
<li>The following passage is from a 1992 publication in which the author, a physicist, discusses “reality” and the models that human beings use to understand the universe.</li>
</ol>
<p>If modern artists have labored to call attention to the fact that our understanding of reality is limited and variegated, so too have modern scientists. Many people are surprised to hear this. They think of science as a collection of hard facts mined from bedrock reality, through a process as uncreative as coin collecting. The scientists, however, have come to know better.</p>
<p>(the whole passage is here: <a href=“http://www.myspace.com/xxxamicaxxx/blog/453171661[/url]”>http://www.myspace.com/xxxamicaxxx/blog/453171661</a>)</p>
<p>What many people consider “hard facts” would most likely to be viewed by the author as</p>
<p>A. necessary
B. solid
C. disturbing
D. tentative
E. difficult</p>
<p>D or E? Why? I thought it was difficult, because later the author said that photographs obtained by astronomers, no matter how many, cannot truly, completely represent the real, whole universe.</p>
<ol>
<li>From Oct 2010 QAS</li>
</ol>
<p>In the coming century, we will decide, by default or
design, how much humanity will tolerate other species and
thus decide the future of biodiversity. The default scenario
will surely include ever more landscapes dominated by
pests and weeds, the global extinction of more large
vertebrates, and a continuing struggle to slow the loss of
biodiversity. While sound science can help mitigate the
risks of Pleistocene rewilding, the potential for unexpected
consequences will worry many conservationists. Yet given
the apparent dysfunction of North American ecosystems
and Earth’s overall state, there are likely significant risks
40 of inaction as well.</p>
<ol>
<li>The author of Passage 1 characterizes the “default
scenario” in lines 31-35 as
(A) creative
(B) inevitable
(C) tolerable
(D) unlikely
(E) undesirable</li>
</ol>
<p>B or E? I infer it’s B because the author says: “… will surely have …”</p>
<ol>
<li>
Passage 1:
We ask those who object to Pleistocene rewilding; Are you content with the defeatist attitude of our current conservation philosophy? Are you content that your descendants might well live in a world devoid of large animals? Are you willing to settle for an American wilderness that is severely impoverished relative to just 100 centuries ago?</li>
</ol>
<p>Passage 2:
Could African mammals, especially large carnivores, really populate the same areas? Would elephants survive the harsh prairie winters, lacking the thick coats of their American mammoth ancestors?</p>
<p>Both authors use questions primarily to
B. anticipate objections
E. raise doubts about aspects of the opposing argument</p>
<p>Thanks!!!</p>
<p>@magicjane</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Situating” is a verb that indicates Francavilla, the town, situates itself. However this is illogical. So you need a passive verb which is “situated”. Note that in its full form the sentence could be read as “Francevilla is situated along … Italy. Francevilla is the town … .”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The error occurs at “it is”. What is the antecedent of “it”? Is it “talent”? Or something else that’s not in the sentence? If it indicates “talent,” then the sentence is illogical, since “talent” can’t do something to succeed. If it indicates an antecedent that’s not included in the sentence, it is wrong in SAT. </p>
<p>B is logical and flows well with its previous clause. So it’s correct.</p>
<p>@magicjane:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“situating” is a gerund. When you say “situating”, you imply that something is going to have something else “situated”. Eg. I carefully dropped the ball, situating it in the center of the marked circle… It is not right to say “the ball is situating in the center of the circle” because I “situate” the ball. The right way to phrase this is “the ball is situated in the center of the circle”.</p></li>
<li><p>a) is wrong because it is ambiguous. “who” succeeds?. Like Rosaline said.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@iownu123</p>
<p>Sentence completion questions require knowledge of vocabulary. Once you know what each word means, the questions become easy :).</p>
<p>In this sentence, you are asked to fill in 2 blanks with vocab. The first one should mean something “lost of flexibility” and the second one should mean “to make something rigid”. These clues are garnered from the phrase behind the comma “their versatility and adaptability destroyed by their transformation into rigid policies”.</p>
<p>Looking at the choices you’ve given, C) sounds the best. Ossified means to become rigid, bureaucratization is something about bureaucracy- a rigid system. Hope I didn’t just give the wrong answer lol. I’m not good with CR :).</p>
<p>@iownu123</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The best strategy I’m using is elimination. First, read and understand the sentence. If you understand what the sentence means, you’d somehow know what kind of words to fill in the blanks. Also, look out for the “signal words” which are “however, despite, although, so, therefore” that implies contrast or similarity. </p>
<p>In the sentence there are two clauses. But in fact the two clauses mean the same thing: creativity(in a business) ruined by rigid policies. Now, look at the five choices. Eliminate B, D and E. </p>
<p>B: I only recognize the word “mitigate” which means assuage. Of course this sentence is not saying that the creative business is assuaged by something. This choice contains irrelevant information. Cross out.
D: How can the business be politicized by innovations? Illogical. Cross out.
E: The business becomes venerable because of legislation? No no no. Perhaps there are some kind of businesses would be venerable if they are legislated. But certainly this is not what the original sentence means. Cross out.</p>
<p>Now we have A and C. For the two choices, I only recognize “streamlined” and “bureaucratization.” And both of them look correct. Now move to the other two words. What does “infighting” means? I don’t know, but by analyzing the word I think it probably relates to “fighting,” and with the prefix “in,” the word probably means “fighting inside a group.” But that’s not correct to fill in the second blank. So I choose C.</p>
<ol>
<li>a. Bones discovered near a quarry near Shanghai have encouraged some biologists to believe that primates originated in Asia </li>
</ol>
<p>vs. b. The discovery of bones located in a quarry near Shanghai have encouraged some biologists to believe that primates originated in Asia</p>
<ol>
<li>a. Having understood the fact that the fulfillment of every desire is horrible as a fate,
one of the strongest Persian curses is the blessing “May all your wishes comes true”. </li>
</ol>
<p>b. Expressing the understanding that to fulfill every desire is actually a horrible fate,
one of the strongest Persian curses is the blessing “May all your wishes comes true”. </p>
<p>:D thanks!</p>
<p>@Post #24, the correct answer I believe is C.</p>
<p>The sentence states that certain innovate business stratagems become (negative word) as a result of (negative word), their versatility and adaptability destroyed by their transformation into rigid policies.</p>
<p>How did we know that both spaces demanded words with negative connotations? Because we looked at the second clause, which stated that their versatility and adaptability were -destroyed-, because these policies were no good anymore, they became rigid (rough, of no use, not beneficial).</p>
<p>Alrighty then, let’s take a look at the answer choices, now that we know how the sentence’s logic is going.</p>
<p>A. streamlined…infighting: Wrong, because streamlined means efficient, which is a positive word.</p>
<p>B. mitigated…jingoism: Wrong, because mitigated means to make better or reduce the damage or wound of something, another positive word.</p>
<p>C. ossified…bureaucratization: Ossified, aha. Ossified means to become rigid and inflexible. So our first word is okay, let’s look at the second word. Bureaucratization. Yes, this is a perfect match. The once innovative policies have now become rigid and inflexible, because the company decided to make the policies turn into bureaucracies, which here has a negative connotation, that I am not sure I am able to explain accurately. However, we already have a good choice here, and we’ll go through the process of elimination with the other choices.</p>
<p>D. politicized…innovation: Wrong, look at the second word. Remember, we wanted a word with negative connotation. Is innovation something negative? No, innovation is a good thing. Choice eliminated.</p>
<p>E. venerable…legislation: Wrong, first word: venerable, which means respectable. As I said, we wanted two words with negative connotations. The policies became bad, not respectable or venerable.</p>
<p>Oops, I thought “streamline” was a synonym of ossify. (supposed meaning: an act becomes perfunctory.) >_<</p>
<p>Well, but even if you didn’t recognize the correct meaning of one of the paired words, you could still eliminate A by analyzing the second word. :)</p>
<p>Could someone helps me for my #25 post? My deep appreciation!</p>
<p>@magicjane</p>
<ol>
<li>a. Bones discovered near a quarry near Shanghai have encouraged some biologists to believe that primates originated in Asia </li>
</ol>
<p>vs. b. The discovery of bones located in a quarry near Shanghai have encouraged some biologists to believe that primates originated in Asia</p>
<p>Hmmm, are there other choices? A sounds awkward, but B has a subject-verb agreement error: the discovery … has(not have). </p>
<ol>
<li>a. Having understood the fact that the fulfillment of every desire is horrible as a fate,
one of the strongest Persian curses is the blessing “May all your wishes comes true”. </li>
</ol>
<p>b. Expressing the understanding that to fulfill every desire is actually a horrible fate,
one of the strongest Persian curses is the blessing “May all your wishes comes true”. </p>
<p>Similar to that “Franceville situates itself/ is situated” question, the error is modification. The first clause is a dependent clause, and it modifies the subject in the second clause. So, A is wrong because it’s illogical. A Persian curse can’t understand something. It’s not a human being. </p>
<p>Jane, if you’d like to polish your grammar skills, I recommend Barron’s Writing Book for practice tests and grammar review; Silverturtle’s grammar guide and grammar.ccc (google Grammar and it’s the first or second result) Guild to Grammar for improving your grammar knowledge. These helped me so much. Especially Guild to Grammar. It’s an exhaustive but easy-to-learn guild, even silverturtle’s guild comes from it. :)</p>
<p>@ Rosaline:</p>
<p>Thank you so much!! I’ll definitely check out those two resources. As for the second question, couldn’t you argue that Persian curses also cant “express the understanding”? I get your explanation for A but I dont’ see why it can’t be applicable to B ): Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Seems like only four people are preparing for the test haha</p>
<p>QaS May 2008</p>
<p>Someone who uses a personal computer to perform only such tasks as word processing and sending e-mail need not(C) buy the most advanced model available on the market.</p>
<p>Isn’t it supposed to be ‘needs not?’
The answer was E.</p>
<p>College Board online course:
From 1566 until 1576 Santa Elena, now an excavation site in South Carolina, was the capital of Spanish Florida; however, it has become an English settlement by 1735. (No error)
Corrected Sentence: From 1566 until 1576, Santa Elena, now an excavation site in South Carolina, was the capital of Spanish Florida; however, it had become an English settlement by 1735.
I thought the past perfect tense is used only for sentences when there are two actions and one of them occurs earlier, whereas in the sentence 1566-1576 is obviously the earlier one. Could someone explain that?
Thanks :)</p>
<p>@magicjane</p>
<p>I see your argument. But somehow I feel that Express can be used for inanimate items. I think you can often find below sentence in literary criticism or book reviews.</p>
<p>“Such XXX(language/a sentence/ a paragraph/ or a phrase) expresses a feeling.” It means an expression evoke a certain feelings.</p>
<p>@MrMustard</p>
<p>“Need not” is a special negative verb. I missed this question too, but then I learned subjective/conditional, negative verbs and modal verbs. The explanation for this question is that “need” is a special verb that it can used either as a normal verb(such as "I don’t need a computer or She needs to pick a banana) or a modal verb. In this case, Need not is used as a modal verb similar to Must not, Should not and Ought not. So it doesn’t have to add s.</p>
<p>For the second question, MrMustard (BTW, your name is cool hahah. I always think of you as someone in cartoon because of your name :P)</p>
<p>You are right about the verb tense in ONE sentence. But that question contains not only one sentence but TWO. The semicolon indicates that the clauses are TWO independent clauses; however, they are closely related to each other, so a semicolon is used. (Note how I combined the two related sentences by using a semicolon here? 
) And of course, you need the verb in perfect tense in the second sentence.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For the purposes of the SAT, just remember that wry means sarcastic. Shoup’s remark is rather sarcastic. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The author would consider the so-called “hard facts” as tentative, or uncertain. I’m not sure how “difficult” fits. The author gives examples of “hard facts” and describes the examples as “small piece of the whole” and as a mere “representation, a painting” of the actual phenomenon. Therefore, the author clearly does not take such “hard facts” as incontrovertible truths - instead - she considers them to be more uncertain or tentative.</p>
<p>Why did you pick “difficult”? I’m having a hard time seeing how it fits. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This one is understandably tricky, and without looking at the answer key, I choose “undesirable.” I think the author means “surely” in a cynical, rather than literal, way. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This one is fairly obvious - the answer is E. In passage one, the questions are raised to raise doubts about putting on a defeatist attitude. The questions in no way anticipate possible objections.</p>
<p>Thank you IceQube!!! :)</p>
<p>As for Question 2, I thought the author meant that “hard facts” were difficult to obtain because he said that images, no matter how many, can only represent at best, like a painting. OK…now I feel I sound illogical. xD</p>
<p>@ Rosaline
You solved the QAS for January 2010 right?? I had some questions on the CR part- can you help me out?:/</p>
<p>This is the 2nd CR section where the mother/author talk about each’s writing styles…
For #18 (tone question), why did you choose didactic and not reflective? I thought that both were talking about/“teaching” (didatic) their writing styles… </p>
<p>and for the passage about the road trip:</p>
<h1>32. “No I won’t ride with servicemen” said my father… while I patriotically offended, watched the stunned defender of my freedoms kicking at his dufflebag…</h1>
<p>What does the latter part of this sentence mean? And is the answer “disloyal” because he is “patriotically offended”? Couldn’t you say that the son views his father as confusing/irrational because the father doesn’t justify why he does’t take the ride offer from servicemen?
Thanks! :D</p>
<h1>18</h1>
<p>Yes, both articles talked about writing. But P1 is to edify, to teach the author’s daughter how to write well, and to talk about the author’s general writing philosophy, while P2 is to analyze an attitude that was held by many “serious writers.” P2 is like a neutral literary essay(it’s actually not truly neutral, but in the excerpt we read, the author scarcely offer his opinions) that you can find in the New York Times or New Yorker. And P2 author is not talking about HIS own writing style. No. The writing style is that of some novelists in 20th century, and the author merely analyze/report that attitude. Now if you are to compare the two passages, you can be sure that P1 is more didactic, because it teaches and P2 doesn’t.</p>
<h1>32</h1>
<p>It means that the boy, while being “patriotically offended,” saw that the soldier was confused (and angered) by the father’s remark and kicked the bag. And the soldier’s body was getting smaller and smaller in the boy’s eyes because the boy was in a moving car.
Of course, the boy himself was also confused and angered by his father’s action.</p>
<p>You can infer from descriptive phrases “patriotically offended” and “the … defender of my freedoms” that the boy feels his father is disloyal. I’d rather think that the boy is confused because his father doesn’t explain why he rejects the soldier, who is considered as respectful(note the boy’s description “the defender of my freedoms”) by the boy.</p>