SAT writing questions help

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1

<p>I took the 2012-2013 practice test provided by CB, and I got some writing questions wrong. But I don't understand why they are correct.</p>

<p>First, #7, section 5. The text between the asterisks is the underlined part.</p>

<p>A poetic form congenial to Robert Browning was the dramatic <em>monologue, it let him explore</em> a character’s mind without the simplifications demanded by stage productions.</p>

<p>(A) monologue, it let him explore
(B) monologue, which let him explore
(C) monologue that lets him explore
(D) monologue; letting him explore
(E) monologue by letting him do exploration of</p>

<p>I picked C, but the answer is actually B. Why? Doesn't that violate subject-verb agreement (this is why I didn't pick B)?</p>

<h1>20 Section 5</h1>

<p>Most of the sediment and nutrients of the Mississippi River <em>no longer (A)</em> reach the coastal wetlands, a phenomenon that has <em>adversely (B)</em> <em>affected ©</em> <em>the region’s (D)</em> ecological balance.
<em>No error (E)</em></p>

<p>I picked D, but the answer is E. What makes this sentence have no error?</p>

<h1>21 section 5</h1>

<p>Most major air pollutants cannot be seen, although
large amounts <em>of them (A)</em> <em>concentrated in (B)</em> cities
<em>are visible ©</em> <em>as (D)</em> smog. <em>No error (E)</em></p>

<p>I picked B, but the answer is E. What makes this sentence have no error?</p>

<p>It's interesting how there are two questions back-to-back that have no error. Counting these last two questions, there is a total of 8 questions on the test that have "no error" as the answer. I learned that "No error" questions come up around 3 to 4 times on a test from my SAT prep class. Should I disregard statistics related to frequency of question types when choosing an answer? To be honest, one big reason I did not pick E for those two questions was that I saw that I had answered many other questions with "No error," so I thought that those two questions must have some error.</p>

2

<h1>7: Pay attention to “was.” Past tense – “lets” is a present tense, while “let” in choice B is past tense.</h1>

<h1>20: What’s wrong with D? No error.</h1>

<h1>21: Also, what’s wrong with B? Also no error.</h1>

<p>Also, you should understand that if an average of 3 or 4 questions per section (suppose the average is 3.5) has a correct answer of E, there will of course be some spread. In statistics this is usually called “standard deviation.” Sometimes there will be only 1 question with answer E, sometimes there could be 7 or 8. Typically, the answers A-E are fairly evenly distributed.</p>