Writing: Improving Sentences & Error ID HELP!

<p>I have 3 tricky sentences that I really need help on.</p>

<hr>

<p>Contrary to popular myth, many people enjoy working [and even report] higher levels of satisfaction during work hours then during leisure time.</p>

<p>(A) and even report
(B) but who also report
(C) as well as even reporting
(D) but even reporting
(E) which they even report</p>

<p>The correct answer is (A). But shouldn't it be (C) because of parallelism between "working" and "reporting"?</p>

<hr>

<p>When the weather is hot, dairies can (A) [be affected] because at high temperatures cows (B) [tend to] eat less and (C) [therefore] produce less milk than (D) [cooler] temperatures. (E) [No error]</p>

<p>Why is the correct answer (D)?</p>

<hr>

<p>You might think that because (A) [they are] beautiful, peacocks would make (B) [a pleasant pet], but in fact their loud, (C) [unearthly] shrieks (D) [are very disturbing]. (E) [No error]</p>

<p>Why is the correct answer (B)?</p>

<ol>
<li> I totally get what you’re thinking, but try looking at the subject more. The “Contrary to popular myth” part is totally irrelevant, and so is the last part of the sentence, so let’s just cut the sentence down to “many people enjoy working [and even report] higher levels of satisfaction” just to make it easier to handle.</li>
</ol>

<p>Obviously, “many people” is the subject here. If we expand the sentence, we need it to say: "Many people enjoy working and many people [even report] higher levels of satisfaction.</p>

<p>They were trying to get you by tricking you into thinking that “working” is a verb here - it’s not. It’s a gerund, or, a verb that acts as a noun. Basically, I could replace “working” with the word “pies” here, and it would still grammatically make sense: “Many people enjoy pies and many people [even report] higher levels of satisfaction.”</p>

<hr>

<ol>
<li> Let’s look at the verb in this one. Also, let’s cut out the “When the weather is hot” part, again, just to make it shorter. So, our sentence is “Dairies can be affected because at high temperatures cows tend to eat less and therefore produce less milk than cooler temperatures.”</li>
</ol>

<p>“Than” is your trigger word for comparisons. So, we SHOULD be comparing milk production in cows at high temperatures to milk production in cows at low temperatures. However, the way the sentence is now, it sounds like we’re comparing milk production in cows at high temperatures to simply “low temperatures.” Basically, it would need to say “…and therefore produce less milk than <em>AT</em> cooler temperatures.”</p>

<hr>

<ol>
<li>This is just an agreement issue. “Peacocks” is obviously plural. “A pleasant pet” is singular. In order to link these two things together, they need to match in number… so it SHOULD be “peacocks would make pleasant pets.” </li>
</ol>

<p>If you’ve taken a foreign language, this is like when you’re using the word “is” to link two things together. If you’re saying “Mary is tall,” tall would have to be feminine, singular, and nominative to exactly match “Mary,” which is feminine, singular, and nominative. (If you haven’t taken a foreign language or take one that doesn’t do this, like Chinese, then just ignore this paragraph ^.^)</p>

<hr>

<p>I hope this makes sense, but please ask questions if you’re still confused :slight_smile: Best of luck!</p>

<p>@LAMuniv Wow, thank you so much; all these explanations from all 3 sentences make perfect sense :)</p>