<p>Plants (grown for) their flowers should be (treated with) a low-nitrogen fertilizer because excessive nitrogen (promotes) the growth of leaves (at the expense of) flowers. </p>
<p>Answer is NO ERROR!?!? WTH how can you compare the growth of leaves with flowers?shouldn't it be growth of flowers? or what?!</p>
<p>Also another question,
(Opposite to) most people i know, Ann, a good photographer (herself), actually (enjoys seeing) the photographs that her friends take (on their) vacations.</p>
<p>I chose A since Opposite to sounds weird but what's the real reason? I think it should be Unlike as well but when do you use unlike and when do you use opposite to?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure “the growth of” is implied there. Now if the verb for flowers wasn’t “growing” it would be an error, but since both leaves and flowers “grow,” I think it’s still grammatically acceptable.</p>
<p>It’s saying that one wants to use very little nitrogen as to not encourage too many leaves (thereby reducing the flower numbers). CB is right, there is no error.
This would make no logical sense.
Plants (grown for) their flowers should be (treated with) a low-nitrogen fertilizer because excessive nitrogen (promotes) the growth of FLOWERS (at the expense of) flowers.</p>
<p>While it is true that you have to make correct comparisons, this does not violate any grammar rules because it’s not that type of comparison. (Sorry hard to explain, just try to think about it logically.)</p>
When excessive nitrogen is used on plants, flowers suffer even though leaves grow. Leaves grow at the expense of flowers. There is a growth of leaves at the expense of flowers. Excessive nitrogen promotes the growth of leaves at the expense of flowers.</p>
<p>There’s no reason you have to make “growth of leaves” and “flowers” parallel in form because they aren’t connected at all. Here are examples of the phrase “at the expense of” being used:
I screamed really loudly at the expense of others sleeping.
I ate five bags of chips at the expense of my health.
There’s just…no correlation. If there were then I would have to say “I ate five bags of chips at the expense of bags of my health.” Read the sentence over and try to understand it before you call “parallel structure.” Parallel structure is not that as common as people on this forum make it out to be. It mostly only appears in simple sentences like “I am running, drinking, and eating at the same time.”
<a href=“Opposite%20to”>quote</a> most people i know, Ann, a good photographer (herself), actually (enjoys seeing) the photographs that her friends take (on their) vacations.</p>
<p>I chose A since Opposite to sounds weird but what’s the real reason? I think it should be Unlike as well but when do you use unlike and when do you use opposite to?
[/quote]
“opposite” as an adjective doesn’t really describe people; it describes objects and concepts. If you’re talking about two objects that are facing each other, then you can say they are opposite to each other. Or if you’re talking about two opposing views, then one view is opposite to the other view, or to say it more elegantly they are opposite views.</p>
<p>“unlike” works as a word to describe people, on the other hand. Alice is unlike Sam. </p>
<p>It’s also an interesting thing to note that “opposite” as a noun can describe people, but only as an idiom (a saying): for example, “Alice and Sam are opposites.”
That doesn’t make sense. In “X is the opposite of Y,” “opposite” is a noun, whereas in “X is opposite to Y,” “opposite” is an adjective. There’s no “idiom” involved here at all, just prepositions.</p>
Everyone else is right</p>