<p>It was obvious that all of the candidates had planned A (carefully) for the televised debate, B (for each) C (answer to) the opening question showed evidence D (of having been) rehearsed.</p>
<p>Can anyone please tell me why B is correct? I thought that "since" was a better replacement for "for".</p>
<p>And, why is D also correct?</p>
<p>(The answer is E).</p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound sarcastic, but you’re asking people to explain why things aren’t wrong? Don’t you think that’s kind of odd? Take this sentence:</p>
<p>“The dog chased the cat.”</p>
<p>How would you begin to explain why it isn’t wrong?</p>
<p>As for your more specific question–“I thought ‘since’ was a better replacement for ‘for’”–simply read the directions for that question type: “…select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct.” The issue is not whether you like the word “since” more than the word “for”; it’s whether “for” must be changed to make the sentence correct.</p>
<p>Got it. Thanks.</p>
<p>What about “D”? I thought “having been” is almost all the time labeled as awkward. Would this choice also be unfavorable because it’s awkward, but still correct, since the directions require that you only choose the option that’s incorrect?</p>
<p>“Having been rehearsed” is a verbal (gerund) acting as the object of the preposition ‘of’. Even though verbals act as other parts of speech, in this case as a noun, they still show tense. ‘Having been rehearsed’ is the past perfect tense signifying that the action of rehearsing happened in the past before some other past event, giving answers in the debate. There are times when the past perfect tense is appropriate, even if it is a bit wordy.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that it’s awkward, but in any case, awkwardness is an issue for Improving Sentences questions (questions 1 through 11 in the long writing section).</p>
<p>It really is not an issue for Identifying Sentence Errors questions (questions 12 through 29). Per the directions quoted above, those are about identifying actual errors, not just things that could be improved.</p>
<p>(fwiw, “since” is never used to mean “because” on the SAT Writing test. If it ever appears that way, it won’t be an answer option)</p>