writing questions from 07 sat

<ol>
<li>For most of recent history, people have used energy wastefully, but now that supplies of essential fuels are becoming rapidly depleted, environmentalists are urging people to change it</li>
</ol>

<p>What's the proper grammatical rule for why it is wrong besides the fact that I thought it was ambiguous. </p>

<ol>
<li>insist that a poem means whatever one wants it to mean is often ignoring the intention and even the words of the poet.</li>
</ol>

<p>what's wrong with ignoring? parallelism? to ignore? I just never got this part of parallelism as the sentence seems awkward to read.</p>

<ol>
<li>among the most dangerous environmental threats that we face are "compu-garbage," the nonbiodegradable and often toxic waste resulting from the improper disposal of obsolete personal computers.</li>
</ol>

<p>why is are wrong?</p>

<p>"For most of recent history, people have used energy wastefully, but now that supplies of essential fuels are becoming rapidly depleted, environmentalists are urging people to change it</p>

<p>What’s the proper grammatical rule for why it is wrong besides the fact that I thought it was ambiguous."</p>

<p>The College Board requires that the pronoun’s antedecent be endophoric (i.e., you have to be able to point to a noun within the sentence that serves as the pronoun’s referrent). </p>

<p>“it,” in this case, does not have one.</p>

<p>"To insist that a poem means whatever one wants it to mean is often ignoring the intention and even the words of the poet.</p>

<p>what’s wrong with ignoring? parallelism? to ignore? I just never got this part of parallelism as the sentence seems awkward to read."</p>

<p>Yes, it’s an issue of parallelism. “infinitive… is infinitive” is the rule here.</p>

<ol>
<li>among the most dangerous environmental threats that we face are -garbage,“compu” the nonbiodegradable and often toxic waste resulting from the improper disposal of obsolete personal computers.</li>
</ol>

<p>why is are wrong? </p>

<p>Are is wrong because the subject of the sentence isn’t the “environmental threats” but rather “compu-garbage”, which is singular.</p>

<p>Yes, it’s a reversed construction, similar to:</p>

<p>“There is one of us.”</p>

<p>“There are many of them.”</p>

<p>“There lie the dead souls.”</p>

<p>“Foremost among those problems is the food crisis.”</p>