<p>The responses (given by) each of the accused criminals at the hearing (was) so similar that the police believed the two men (undoubtedly) (had conspired) to commit a crime.</p>
<p>A) given by
B) was
C) undoubtedly
D) had conspired
E) no error</p>
<p>I chose "B" because I thought "the responses" is plural but the answer if "given by".
Can someone please explain it to me.</p>
<p>That seems like a mistake to me. I think it’s definitely B.</p>
<p>I think it’s B as well… “responses…was” does not agree</p>
<p>explanation: subjects and verbs of a sentence need to agree on one thing: number</p>
<p>responses- plural subject
was- singular verb</p>
<p>In order to agree subjects and verbs must either both be singular or plural.</p>
<p>“was” should be “were.”</p>
<p>Here is the question.</p>
<p>Mediators were standing by, prepared (to intervene in) the labor dispute (even though) both sides (had refused) early offers (for) assistance. </p>
<p>I do not understand why the answer is right. I have the answer, but I’ll post it after I see a few responses.</p>
<p>Choose an answer and please explain your reasoning. Thanks.</p>
<p>hotinpursuit, </p>
<p>This question has been frequently posted on CC. Here is an explanation posted by crazybandit:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So ‘of’ is used in the act of refusing the offerings of assistance.<br>
Okay thanks silver.</p>
<p>^^ So for that question, does that imply that “of” is always used after actions?</p>
<p>In that case when would “for” be used?</p>
<p>^It’s not as simple as that. I explained it like that to help people see patterns. When you say “I ate the apple,” and want to describe how the experience was, you say “the eating of the apple was enjoyable,” right? If you offer assistance to someone, and want to describe the offer you made, you say “the offer of assistance I made made me feel like a kind person.”</p>
<p>There are many definitions and usages of “for.” The most pertinent one is: “with the purpose of.” “For” seems to be relevant in the sentence because it seems that the purpose of the offer was to assist, or more simply, assistance. But this is not the case. The phrase does not want to indicate PURPOSE; it simply wants to attach an object to the offer. If you want to attach an amount of money to the offer, you say “an offer of $500,” because you are offering $500.</p>
<p>“a grant for studying medicine” implies that the purpose of the grant is to study medicine. “a grant of studying medicine” implies that studying medicine was granted, which makes no sense.</p>
<p>All of this should be familiar with you (subconsciously, for lack of a better word). You just need to use reasoning/intuition and draw patterns.</p>
<p>Hmm so I read this:</p>
<p>“For is the preposition that is used after some nouns, adjectives, or verbs in order to introduce more information or to indicate what a quality, thing, or action relates to”
&
“You use of after a noun which specifies a particular part of something, to introduce the thing that it is a part of.”</p>
<p>So essentially, this is something that you could only get intuitively since the usage is so vague?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. It’s not vague. There’s just too many definitions to memorize. Therefore it is just easier if you know it intuitively beforehand. The information you quoted is poor. Just read the dictionary for the technical side of it. The rest is up to you and how well you reason when you approach writing questions</p>
<p>Ah, I see, it makes more sense now. So the best way to familiarize yourself with the type of issues would probably be to do loads of practice and then learn the reasoning for why it was wrong? Because to some people, the reasoning isn’t as natural as someone like you.</p>
<p>Or go back to 8th grade and start reading profusely.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, I actually did read profusely back in middle school. That doesn’t seem to help much besides, being able to understand most CR passages.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. I agree that most people don’t really use reasoning, but the fact is that you already know the majority of the rules (since you’ve spoken English all your life). There isn’t anything much to “learn.” If you familiarize yourself with a particular phrase (one you found in a practice test), who’s to say you aren’t going to get that SAME structure but DIFFERENT phrase on a question and get it wrong? If you apply reasoning and look at patterns, you will never call a grammatical structure, which encompasses an infinite amount of phrases, incorrect.</p>