Qod

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I did today's QOD and i noticed sth unusual. </p>

<p>Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance<br>
[is a form] of theater dance, the dancers usually
[highly trained] professionals [performing for]
audiences [in particular] venues and on special<br>
occasions. No error </p>

<p>According to CB's explanation the correct answer is A. I think there is a second error occuring at C ( performing for should be perform for ) . But there cannot be 2 errors within the same sentece , so what do you think ?</p>

2

<p>Which one is "more wrong" I guess. :-/</p>

<p>It's a pretty bad question, IMO.</p>

<p>"usually highly trained professionals" should be parenthetic, also IMO.</p>

<p>I'm pretty bad at grammar though.</p>

3

<p>Strange question.</p>

<p>A is conspicuously wrong but C looks bad as well. It looks like a verb is missing or a semicolon and a verb.
Anyway, I would always choose A, because I'm very sure that a subject in the form "a, b and c" cannot go with a singular verb.
Regarding C, it might only be some grammatically-correct, fancy style the SAT-writers might want to throw.</p>

4

<p>"performing for" would also be an error if the sentence were punctuated differently:
Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance
[is a form] of theater dance; the dancers, usually
[highly trained] professionals, [performing for]
audiences [in particular] venues and on special
occasions.</p>

<p>As it stands, C is correct. Awkward and poorly written, but technically correct. A is the safe answer, since it's definitely wrong.</p>

5

<p>The answer is A. Choice C is completely correct. There is no other way to say "performing for". You can not substitute "perform for" here. "Performing" acts as a adjective, rather than a verb here.</p>

6

<p>actually, there's nothing wrong at all with "performing for." it's not even awkward. the sentence uses an elliptical construction to omit the verb "are" after the word "dancers," which turns the second half of the sentence into a dependent clause, which makes it okay to use a comma to separate the two clauses.</p>

<p>in other words, if the sentence were written this way, it would be fine:</p>

<p>"Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance are forms of theater dance; the dancers are usually highly trained professionals performing for audiences in particular venues and on special occasions."</p>

<p>which means you can take out the second "are" and create this sentence:</p>

<p>"Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance are forms of theater dance, the dancers usually highly trained professionals performing for audiences in particular venues and on special occasions."</p>

<p>i doubt you'll be called upon to make this transformation on the SAT. indeed, on this question you don't even have to realize that it's okay, since (a) is clearly wrong and you can only have one wrong thing per question.</p>

7

<p>"Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance are forms of theater dance, the dancers usually highly trained professionals performing for audiences in particular venues and on special occasions." </p>

<p>That is perfectly fine! There are no mistakes in that sentence. "highly trained" is correct, because for adverbs ending in -ly, you almost Never need a hyphen, so it's not highly-trained.</p>

8

<p>dchow08: I don't think SAT requires you to know how to use the hypen properly</p>

9

<p>i still don't get it.


</p>

<p>if we simplify the first one, then:
blah, blah, and blah are forms of dance; the dancers are professionals.</p>

<p>taking out the second "are" does not work:
blah, blah, and blah are forms of dance, the dancers professionals.</p>

<p>even if we keep the "performing" part it still does not make sense:
blah, blah, and blah are forms of dance, the dancers professionals performing for blah.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance
[is a form] of theater dance,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You've got three types of dance under a singular verb..</p>

11

<p>can't get this stupid question out of my mind. :mad:</p>

<p>i wonder if the original "normal" sentence could be
"Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance are forms of theater dance; the dancers <a href="%5B/b%5Dusually%20highly%20trained%20professionals%5Bb%5D">b</a> are** performing for audiences in particular venues and on special occasions."</p>

<p>then it can be changed into
"Ballet, modern dance, and Indian classical dance are forms of theater dance, the dancers performing for audiences in particular venues and on special occasions."</p>

<p>is it the same structure as in
"ACT is better for me than SAT, science being my forte."?</p>

12

<p>hi &1&2,</p>

<p>what seems to be throwing everybody is the lack of a main verb in the second half of the sentnece. the "are" you mentioned in your last post belongs before the word "usually." let me explain why.</p>

<p>to begin with, an "elliptical" sentence is one in which a portion of the sentence is omitted because it's understood to be there. this is often done for rhetorical effect. so i can write:</p>

<p>"My father is an architect; my mother is a writer."</p>

<p>in that sentence, everything necessary is included. both subjects ('my father' and 'my mother') have verbs ('is' and 'is') and objects ('an architect' and 'a writer,' respectively). you'll notice this sentence is an example of parallelism.</p>

<p>i could shorten that sentence to read this way:</p>

<p>"My father is an architect, my mother a writer."</p>

<p>in that instance, the verb "is," which was common to both of the parallel clauses in the first version of the sentence, has been removed from the second half of the sentence. i can do this because it's understood to be there, since it's common to both clauses.</p>

<p>this is the same thing we have going on in the CB sentence, and this is why the phrasing you mentioned actually DOES work:</p>

<p>"blah, blah, and blah are forms of dance, the dancers professionals."</p>

<p>we can only use this structure when the two clauses have parallel constructions. in the CB sentence, the constructions both work like this:</p>

<p>"[plural subject] are [plural object]."</p>

<p>if the "are" were placed before "performing," as you recommended, then the parallel structure would be destroyed. instead of being a main verb equating "dancers" with "highly trained professionals" in the second clause, the "are" would become a helping verb indicating the present tense of the verb "to perform." that would make the verb in the first clause "to be" and the verb in the second clause "to perform," which would mean the two clauses had nothing in common structurally, and which would make it impossible to omit the "are" in the second clause.</p>

<p>so to answer your other question, it's not the same structure as in</p>

<p>"ACT is better for me than SAT, science being my forte."</p>

<p>in fact, and not that it matters here, that structure isn't actually grammatically acceptable :) i know people talk like that all the time, but it's actually not an okay sentence. but i wouldn't worry about that for now.</p>

<p>also, i just want to point out one more time that you don't actually need to know about ellipsis to answer an SAT question. we know that every SAT ISE question has only one error in it at most, and we know that "is a form" can't possible be correct. that means we know that the rest of the sentence is error-free, even if we're not exactly sure why. so this particular test item isn't about ellipsis; it's about subject-verb agreement.</p>

<p>mike</p>

13

<p>thanks a lot mike!
you explained it in a very lucid way.<br>
i realize that ellipticism did not matter in answering this particular question.<br>
i wanted to make sense of the whole sentence, and that sense was totally escaping me.
i understand it now, but i think this sentence is an example of atrocious writing (grammar, obviously, not being my forte :D)</p>