SAT writing question

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<ol>
<li>The students found fieldwork in the state forest more exciting and dangerous than any of them had (anticipated, having to be) rescued by helicopter during a fire. </li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>The answer is (anticipated: they had to be), and I was wondering what is “:”? When do we use “ : ”? can anyone explain for this?</li>
</ul>

<ol>
<li>Alongside the trail on which we ride our bikes each morning (run a crooked line of rugged old oak trees.)
A) run a crooked line of rugged old oak trees
B) runs a crooked line of rugged old oak trees
C) runs rugged old ask trees in a crooked line
D) there runs rugged old oak trees in a crooked line
E) there run a crooked line of rugged old oak trees</li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>I don’t know the answer of this question, but I picked B as an answer! Is it right??</li>
</ul>

<ol>
<li>Watermelons have been cultivated for more than 4,000 years, (and whereby thumping them) to test for ripeness has an equally long history. </li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>The answer is (and thumping them), I got it right but why the original sentence is wrong?</li>
</ul>

<ol>
<li>The method (of how different viruses being transmitted) from one patient to another depends on the particular viruses involved.
A) of how different viruses being transmitted
B) by which different viruses that are being transmitted</li>
</ol>

<p>-- the answer is B, can you please explain why A is wrong and error type of the question! And in SAT, is “being” create wordiness?? Can you explain this why???</p>

<ol>
<li>(At) the age of seventy-one, (legendary) country music artist Johnny Cash astonished his fans (by performing) a song that the rock group Nine Inch Nails originally (has recorded). (No error)</li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>The error is (has recorded) and I got this right, but I don’t know how to fix this!!</li>
</ul>

<p>Please help!!! And thanks for reading this!!</p>

2

<p>1) “:” just mean to explain for the previous phrase. in this case, being rescued by a helicopter during a fire is a reason for how the students found fieldwork dangerous than they had thought.
2) I also think B. It uses exact inversion for the singular noun a crooked line ( singular verb runs)
3) I am not sure of this: whereby is never followed by a comma.
4) The sentence feels like missing verb??? I don’t know
I think it should be like:
The method of how different viruses ARE transmitted from one patient to another depends on the particular viruses involved.
Or
The method by which different viruses are transmitted from one patient to another depends on the particular viruses involved.
About “being” problems on SAT, actually, not all sentences including being are wrong.
Ex: Being an engineer, she is also blablabla
instead of " she is an engineer, and she is also …", This being is vital in this sentence.
5) It should be “had recorded”
THe act of recording happens before the act of performing a song so we should use the tense of past perfect.</p>

3

<p>(1) I don’t ever recall seeing the real SAT testing for punctuation, especially a colon. That said I agree with hanngo’s explanation</p>

<p>(2) B is right. The subject is line, and line is singular. So A is wrong – i.e. subject-verb disagreement. C is wrong because it doesn’t make sense for trees to be the subject. And even if it did make sense, there is subject-verb disagreement. For D & E when you drop the there you have either an illogical subject or a subject-verb disagreement.</p>

<p>(3) At best, whereby is a redundant conjunction. At worse it doesn’t make sense. Whereby should be followed by some statement that explains something. As written it serves as another “and”. The punctuation is not the issue.</p>

<p>(4) The sentence (ignoring the clause “of how …”) has a verb – i.e. depends. The method depends on <something>. Idiomatically we don’t say “the method of how”. We would say “the method by which”, so (A) is wrong. But the participle “being” in B doesn’t belong. Have you transcribed this choice correctly?</something></p>

4

<p>Thank you so much!!!
Actually number 4 question’s answer is wrong it should be “by which different viruses are transmitted” instead of “by which different viruses that are being transmitted”!
And I have another question, someone told me that the difference between " ; " and " : " is that afer " ; " there should be (must be) clause, but after " : " it can be phrase, or anything can come up after " : " is it true???</p>

5

<p>The “;” is little more than a “weak” period. What follows the semicolon is an independent clause. Often a semicolon can be replaced by a period. The use of one or the other is sometimes subjective – i.e. the whim of the writer. The text following the colon can be a list of items. (Google <grammar colon=""> for many explanations and examples.) I don’t recommend that you start using colons in your school writing. They are quite specialized.</grammar></p>

<p>In any case I assume that you are studying for the SAT. Distinguishing the correct use of periods versus semicolons versus colons is not the best use of your study time. This is not an area that’s tested.</p>