<p>These are the three questions in my writing practice that I missed in the 25 min. section. If someone could explain the rules behind the correct answer, that would be awesome because I think I need to start concentrating on that more if I want to stand a shot at a score in the high 700s. </p>
<ol>
<li>The labor union is negotiating a contract with the hospital that will satisfy the demands of the workers and be acceptable to all levels of management. (LVL: E)</li>
</ol>
<p>A. is negotiating
B. that
C. will satisfy (correct answer; I see it should be "satisfies", but why?)
D. be acceptable to
E. no error (my answer)</p>
<ol>
<li>In those cities in which public transportation is adequate, fewer traffic problems occur and pedestrians are rarely involved in accidents. (LVL: E)</li>
</ol>
<p>A. those cities
B. in which (my answer; I thought "where" could be applied more effectively)
C. are rarely
D. involved in
E. no error (correct answer)</p>
<ol>
<li>The report Alexander is discussing, a report prepared jointly by he and the committee, does not take into account the socioeconomic status of those interviewed. (LVL: M)</li>
</ol>
<p>A. is discussing
B. he (correct answer; any rule explanation behind this?)
C. take into account
D. of those interviewed
E. no error (my answer)</p>
<p>It's upsetting that I'm missing lower level writing questions, but in a way it gives more hope that they are mistakes that can be rectified with a sound knowledge of grammatical rules. </p>
<p>Thanks for the help! This can act as a grammar help thread leading up to the June 5 SAT if another hasn't aldready be created.</p>
<ol>
<li> Difficulties often crop up when a pronoun (he/him) is joined to a noun in a construction. To see whether you should use he or him, she or her, we or us, they or them, I or me . . . drop the “and” and the noun, and choose the one that fits. Here, the word in question is the object of “by.” So you use the objective (or accusative case), which is “him.” You wouldn’t say “a report prepared by he.” It would be “a report prepared by him.” If “a report prepared by he” sounds ok to you, then that’s a problem of a different level.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>“in which” is ok. CB actually seems to prefer it to “where.” Perhaps the emphasis is on the public transportation within the city," so “in which” suits that.</p></li>
<li><p>Actually, I don’t know about this one. silverturtle? Someone else? There is a lack of parallelism, because “will satisfy” is future active, while “be acceptable to” is present passive, but I’m not sure why that would mean that the answer is C and not D. Also, since the contract is still under negotiation, its ability to satisfy the workers is in the future, in my opinion.</p></li>
</ol>
The answer is (E) No error. “Satisfy” and “be acceptable” are parallel because they are both verbs. Both structures are modified by “will.” The contract will satisfy the demands of the workers; it will also be acceptable to all levels of management. It will satisfy . . . and [will] be acceptable . . . .</p>
<p>If CB insists the answer is C, then I think it might be that they are looking for “would satisfy,” which is a conditional construction. But then how is that “Easy?”</p>
<p>Hold up, both of you are confusing me here. OP didn’t even underline what were the possible errors to choose from. If “will satisfy” was already placed in that sentence, then I would agree with Crazybandit that it’s E.</p>
<p>Seachai, the possible incorrect underlined choices are exactly what were mentioned in A, B, C, D, E below the original sentence…</p>
<p>Thanks for the help on the few, and for Q. 13 my BB gave me the answer C, which I can see, but I truly still want to stick with my original answer of E (no error). Is it possible that the holy grail of nationalized test-taking, cb, made an error in their study guide?</p>
<p>Whoa I just realized. gadgor, practice test #2 of 1st edition guide is a carbon copy of practice test #4 of 2nd edition guide. The answer key in the 2nd edition’s guide says E, so I’m going to assume that cb corrected their mistake on the 2nd edition.</p>
<p>Yes, you are correct that there are errors in the book. The second edition fixed presumably all these errors, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it itself had errors. You should always be confident enough in your answers to not doubt them, despite what the answer key says (depending on how good you are of course). That is one of the keys to doing well in writing in my opinion.</p>
<p>13 makes sense now, if the issue was a typo in the key. As far as parallelism goes, I see your point, crazybandit–but have to say that I do not consider constructions such as “will do” and “will be” to be truly parallel, because one involves a transitive verb (do) and the other a linking verb (be). In my own writing, I would change this. However, CB doesn’t seem to object to this particular type of approximate parallelism at all. (Perhaps they view it as analogous to the difference between masculine and feminine rhyme.)</p>
<p>There is nothing universally wrong with the sentence. As long as the structures are of the same type (verbs, infinitives, gerunds, et al.), there is no grammatical error. It does not matter what type of verb each structure is. For example, there are over a million results in a Google search for “to love is to be.” “To love” and “to be [adjective]” are infinitives and that alone will suffice to maintain parallelism. You may avoid this in your writing but there is really nothing wrong with the sentence. Parallel structure is a very simple rule. I don’t think it is so technical.</p>
<p>Yes, CB agrees with you–I acknowledge that. Not being snide in saying that
I still don’t like it myself, though, just on a personal basis.
“To be, or not to be . . .” Now, that’s parallel!</p>
<p>At the annual dessert festival, (carefully crafted) pastries (are presented) in elegant displays, drawing people from near and far to take part in (this) (yearly event). (no error)</p>
<p>The answer is NE…but why not D? Is it not redundant? (from PR 12 prac. tests)</p>
<ol>
<li>The report Alexander is discussing, a report prepared jointly by he and the committee, does not take into account the socioeconomic status of those interviewed. (LVL: M)</li>
</ol>
<p>A. is discussing
B. he (correct answer; any rule explanation behind this?)
C. take into account
D. of those interviewed
E. no error (my answer)</p>
<p>“by” is a preposition so the object of the preposition should be him not he</p>
<p>Prepared by is followed by an object, not a subject. The object form of the 3rd person singular is him, not he.
ViggyRam - I suggest you stop using PR. I’ve found that writing questions from books out of the BB tend to confuse, well, everyone. Plus, they’re off base more than they’re correct.
At any rate, no it’s not really redundant. They’re specifying which yearly event it is, and referring to the antecedent “festival”. As a descriptive pronoun (as I believe it’s called),
“this” is perfectly fine.</p>
