<p>I'm reviewing the questions I got wrong on last year's PSAT. I still don't get this one:</p>
<p>The changes in the employees benefit plan, especially the increase in insurance fees, has angered the workers and threatened a general strike.</p>
<p>(A) has angered the workers and threatened
(B) have so angered the workers that they have threatened
(C) have angered the workers, threatening
(D) has caused such anger among the workers that they have threatened
(E) have angered the workers to threaten</p>
The “so . . . that” construction denotes cause and effect. It can be reworded to “the changes . . . have angered the workers so much that they have threatened a general strike.” The changes angered the workers to such an extent that they’ve threatened a general strike.</p>
<p>Look at C.
First of all, this sentence uses a participial phrase (“threatening a general strike”), which is used to describe an action that occurs roughly at the same time that another action occurs. In this case, the changes have angered the workers while threatening a general strike. The comma shows that “threatening” modifies the entire clause (“the changes . . . workers”), or, more precisely, just the subject (“the changes” are doing the threatening), which makes no sense because it is the workers that are doing the threatening.</p>
<p>Now if there were no comma, there is more likelihood to think that “threatening” modifies “workers” in the same way “sleeping” modifies “man” in the phrase “the man sleeping on the bus.” Essentially, the comma and the participial phrase makes the sentence somewhat confusing to read and the idea to be a little ambiguous.</p>
<p>Second, the participial phrase is not as effective as the “so . . . that” construction because it is not like the workers are doing the threatening while having been angered. They did it because they were angered, or upon being angered. This cause-and-effect relationship is best expressed by the “so . . . that” construction. It connects the two actions together instead of separating them into a clause and a participial phrase.</p>
<p>INCORRECT: “The man drank a lot, sleeping on the street.”
CORRECT: “The man drank so much that he feel asleep on the street.”</p>