Some writing questions

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1

<p>I'm good at picking out the right answer for writing questions, but sometimes I just don't know why a certain choice is correct or incorrect.</p>

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<li>You cannot expect to treat your friends badly and no one notices.</li>
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<p>The answer should be "and have no one notice," but I'm not sure of the exact grammatical reason.</p>

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<li>Chess players find that playing against a computer is helpful A. to improve B. their skills, C. even though no chess-playing computer has yet D. won a championship.</li>
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<p>I'm thinking that it's A because it should be "helpful in improving" not "helpful to improve," but why?</p>

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<li>His love of politics A. led B. him to volunteer in local campaigns C. as well as D. a job in a government office in the state capital.</li>
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<p>It's D. because it should be "to a job" not "a job," right?</p>

2

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<li><p>You cannot expect to treat your friends badly and no one notices.
Okay I THINK that they are in different tenses - first part of the sentence in future, second part in present. Don’t quote me on that - I’m horrible at grammar rules, even though I can pick out the errors :/</p></li>
<li><p>His love of politics led him to volunteer in local campaigns as well as a job in a government office in the state capital.
The way I see this one, if you take out the ‘to volunteer in local campaigns as well as’, the sentence will still make sense (…led him to a job in…) Again, I have no idea what the rule is, sorry :/</p></li>
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3

<ol>
<li><p>EDIT: Just realized my explanation was wrong for this one. I really have no Idea what the error is for that one but at least it sounds blatantly incorrect. </p></li>
<li><p>You’re absolutely right here, the reason is that there is a lack of parallelism in the verbs. Notice how it starts with the gerund ‘playing’ therefore it must follow with a verb in the form ending in -ing.</p></li>
<li><p>This one is probably another parallelism error. First notice the verb volunteer. The verb volunteer indicates what he is volunteering IN. What if you were to write the sentence as follows:</p></li>
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<p>His love of politics led him to volunteer local campaigns as well as a job in a government office in the state capital.</p>

<p>Notice if you take out the preposition “IN”, it sounds completely awkward, therefore in order for the sentence to be complete you must have the preposition “IN” preceding both “local campaigns” and “a job”</p>

4

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<p>Hmm I didn’t even think of it that way. Volunteering in a job just isn’t a common phrase :P</p>

<p>Thanks to both of you!</p>

5

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<p>I think this is it: The verb “expect” takes an infinitive as its object. “To treat” serves as the infinitive governing the first half of the clause, but the second half needs one. If you expand the sentence it becomes clearer: You cannot expect to treat your friends badly and you cannot expect to have no one notice.</p>

6

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<p>I don’t think it’s exactly a parallelism error. Playing is not being compared or “paralleled” to improving. I think it’s just an idiom error: helpful doesn’t take an infinitive, it takes a gerund.</p>

<p>I think #3 is a parallelism error: “to volunteer” and “a job” need to be parallel, so “a job” should be replaced with “to work.”</p>

7

<p>^ Yeah I totally see it now. It definitely is to work. Jamesford, now that I realize it “volunteering in” might not be grammatically correct lol.</p>

8

<ol>
<li>I thought “no one” is singular. What Part of speech allows “no one” to correlate with “notice”?</li>
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