WRITING: Improving Sent. Question

<p>About 35 percent of the world’s orange juice is produced by Florida, [comparing it with] nearly 50 percent produced by Brazil, the world’s largest orange producer.</p>

<p>A) comparing it with
B) but
C) whereas
D) although
E) compared with</p>

<p>Choice (E) is correct. It avoids the error of the original by removing the vague pronoun “it” so that the percentage of orange juice produced by Florida is directly compared with the percentage produced by Brazil.</p>

<p><em>My question</em>
When does one use "whereas?" And how frequent does that answer pop up? I don't recall it used that frequently...but I could be wrong?</p>

<p>Whereas is a conjunction, whereas "with" is a preposition.</p>

<p>Whereas is used to connect two distinct sentences that do not oppose each other. For example:</p>

<ol>
<li>Bob is fun. Jimmy is ascetic = Bob is fun, whereas Jimmy is ascetic.</li>
</ol>

<p>There's a subtle difference between the use of "whereas" and "but." I'll TRY to illustrate that:</p>

<ol>
<li>Joe's is having a sale. The Qwik-E-Mart's sale is better = Joe's having a sale, but the Qwik-E-Mart's sale is better. </li>
</ol>

<p>The two sentences oppose each other, they're "arguing."</p>

<ol>
<li>Joe's is having a sale. The Qwik-E-Mart always has low prices = Joe's is having a sale, whereas the Quik-E-Mart always has low prices.</li>
</ol>

<p>The Quik-E-Mart isn't trying to compete with Joe's sale with one of its own. It has a distinct way of selling its products that doesn't necessary oppose Joe's.</p>

<p>It's hard to explain. If you're reading novels and works of nonfiction to prepare for the SAT, as you should be, your "grammar sense" will improve, and so you'll be able to recognize the difference just by the "sound" of the sentence.</p>

<p>Can you please tell me what that sentence mean? Because I don’t really think that it tells us anything and it doesn’t even feel like it’s a sentence.</p>

<p>It’s like saying:
I eat 2 bowls of rice a day, compared with Bob who eats 5 bowls of rice a day, the fattest guy in class
I’m not sure if that is right though.</p>

<p>It feels that the sentence isn’t finished.
Can you teach me how to read the sentence?</p>