Question regarding SAT

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

I was looking on khan academy and saw this question in the reading section of the SAT as practice

Three-dimensional facial scans are being ___ (used) to determine how well patients have aged in comparison to their peers (the word used is underlined)

and they want you to replace it with either

A. No Change
B. Usefully Employed
C. Put Into Action
D. Employed and Utilized.

now the person doing the video chose to not change the word and used (A), but I was just curious as to if this was the case for all questions, where you tend to want to choose the most concise but short way of saying things? For example, if you said C, put into action, instead of the word used, it would still sound pretty good, so I am just not sure, is it always better to keep it as short as possible? In my opinion, I might’ve chosen C in this case but the person in the video emphasizes the fact that you want to keep it as concise as possible, and I just want to make sure it is the case for questions similar.

2

Well, my first instinct was “no change” then noticed that as an option. None of the answers is incorrect, but if it ain’t broke . . . .

3

My advice for my own kid was that when more than one answer sounded right, to pick the shorter one.

4

my two cents! Definitely - put in to action is wrong - clumsy use and is generally used in slightly different context in written English in my opinion.

5

B and D are redundant, and C is wrong, since facial scans do not perform “action,” @Travvers1 , and while brevity is a virtue, it’s not relevant in this question as the others are just plain wrong. As for people talking about answers that “sound right,” well, that’s a bad approach on this exam, as it’s expressly designed to serve up correct constructions that sound wrong and incorrect constructions that sound right.