<p>Can anyone explain this question to me?</p>
<p>(By painting them) this after noon, the walls would be completely dry by tomorrow morning.
a) by painting them
b) if they would have been painted
c) were they to be painted
d) after paiting them
e) they would be painted</p>
<p>the answer is C. i was stuck between either b or c and i chose b.</p>
<p>I usually get 700s on writing, but on this one i got a 640..
anyone else found writing section on this test especially hard? ):</p>
<p>“were they to be…would” is correct because it utilizes the subjunctive mood. It expresses some sort of wish or possibility about something that has not yet occurred.</p>
<p>The indicative mood expresses something concrete as opposed to something hypothetical.</p>
<p>Subjunctive: If I were a millionaire, I would buy a sports car.
Indicative: If I am a millionaire tomorrow, I will buy a sports car.</p>
<p>There are basically two ways to express a condition. One way is to say what will happen (if X happens, Y will happen). The other way is to say what would happen (if X were to happen, Y would happen).</p>
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<p>(B) is incorrect because “if they would have been” refers to something in the past. It discusses something that didn’t actually happen in the past and what would’ve happened if it did.</p>
<p>For example, you might say, “I would have been considered attractive in the Middle Ages,” or “If I had remembered where I parked the car, I would have gotten home sooner.” It expresses a hypothesis about the past. This doesn’t apply to the sentence because it is talking about painting “this afternoon,” which is in the future, not the past.</p>