Really tricky writing questions

<p>Am I missing something? I got -7 out of the 49 writing questions on my first ever practice test. 5 of them were careless mistakes but the other 2 were just questions i had no idea why they were wrong.</p>

<p>The derelict old house across from the warehouses and the even more decrepit one just beside them have been placed on the list of historic landmarks.</p>

<p>Answer is "just beside" i put "no error."</p>

<p>As their brains mature neurologically, infants become more capable to distinguish the shapes of the objects around them.</p>

<p>Answer is "around them" i put "no error."</p>

<p>Can anyone help?</p>

<p>First Question:</p>

<p>I can’t see any reason that “just beside” is wrong. The house may indeed be nearly but not exactly beside the warehouses, which justifies “just.”</p>

<p>Second Question:</p>

<p>The only reason this may be wrong is the presence of the grammatically ambiguous pronoun “them.” The grammatical antecedent is “objects,” but one can easily intuit the intended referent as “infants.” (Plus, “infants” is the subject of the clause.)</p>

<p>Yea i couldn’t justify either one. I understand where you’re coming from with the second question but still that’s something that can be argued; somewhat subjective.</p>

<p>So, in reality should i be worried about questions like these? Is there a likely chance that a question like either one of them will appear on an actual exam?</p>

<p>the first one is definitely no error. if the book says the answer is not E, then it must be a typo
if it was leaning towards being incorrect then i would say otherwise but it is 100% correct</p>

<p>the second question on the other hand is silly. the CB doesn’t normally expect you to correct a grammatically ambiguous pronoun with a repeated noun. i think a normal human being would say the answer is no error as well, and if not, i wouldn’t worry about seeing this on the test</p>

<p>Where are these questions from?</p>

<p>Sorry for the late response, but yea these came directly out of the new CB 10 practice test edition blue book. I thought i was going crazy because they don’t offer explanations in the book and i couldn’t find the error anywhere.</p>

<p>BTW, it’s from the first practice test.</p>

<p>Are you sure that the answer to the second is not “capable to”?
I’m pretty that “capable of” is the correct idiom.</p>

<p>You misread the answer key. The first is no error, the second is (c) “of distinguishing.”</p>

<p>O_O</p>

<ol>
<li>Char.</li>
</ol>

<p>Haha wow…</p>

<p>my book says the answer for 24 is E
so definitely the answer is E</p>