Writing questions from the blue book test #9

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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Section 3,

nb 5, ans E: I don’t understand how can we compare programmers and colleagues with “more” - should not it be “most” since colleagues refers to all the people?

nb 9, ans B: why is D grammatically incorrect?

nb 10, ans A: why is D grammatically incorrect?

nb 30, ans A: OK, I was totally lost between A and D as both work. What makes D incorrect?

Thanks in advance for any help you have to offer.

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For #30, you have to read farther ahead into the passage. If you used “having” the sentence would read,

“Having attended Stanford University, where she met and married another student (a mining engineer named Herbert Hoover) and became one of the first American women to earn a degree in geology.”

If you use “having” then that first part before the comma needs to be finished later in the sentence. “Having attended Stanford, (non essential clause), she did blah blah blah.” But it uses “and” instead of “she”. Someone else can probably explain it better but using “having” makes the sentence sound incomplete like you are not completing the thought. If you say “She attended Stanford University, (other stuff)” then that is an independent clause and is not waiting for it to be complete as opposed to saying “having”. Sorry if i explained poorly

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Test 9 Section 3
5. “too much”, “lesser” and “less” refer to the amount of work, not to the programmers or colleagues.
“A lesser amount of work” is a wordy, awkward was to say “less work”. This is why choice A is wrong.

  1. D: "As a result of economic hardship causing many problems". "As a result of" is a PREPOSITION that should be followed by a NOUN, not a CLAUSE. You need a CONJUNCTION (e.g., because) not a PREPOSITION (e.g., of) before a CLAUSE with a subject and a verb . Correct: "As a result of (preposition) economic hardship (noun), many people were forced to emigrate." Incorrect: "As a result of (preposition) economic hardship spreading through the country, many people were forced to emigrate." Correct: "Because (conjunction) economic hardship was spreading through the country (clause), many people were forced to emigrate." Correct: "As a result of the delay, we were late for the meeting." Incorrect: "As a result of being delayed, we were late for the meeting."
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Thank you everyone! :slight_smile:

What about 10? @Plotinus would love a grammatical explanation for this one!

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Test 9 Section 3 Question 10

D. “In Germany, foresters discovered that trees killed by acid had begun to die four years earlier without any signs of disease shown then.”

Error 1:
“without” is a preposition. A preposition should be followed by a noun or a gerund, not a clause.
Correct: “without any signs of disease”
Correct: “without showing any signs of disease”.
Incorrect: “without any signs of disease shown”.

Error 2:
If you take away the verb in the past perfect (“had shown”), the time reference of “then” becomes ambiguous. Does “then” refer to the time when the foresters discovered the trees, or four years earlier?

Error 3:
Using “without” instead of “even though” changes the meaning of the sentence. You have a choice of discourse markers:

“even though”
“but”
“however”
“without”

To choose the correct discourse marker
Step 1: Determine the two ideas to be linked:
Idea 1: The trees had begun to die four years earlier
Idea 2: The trees had not shown signs of disease four years earlier.

Step 2: Determine the logical relation of the two ideas.
Idea 2 is a circumstance that is unexpected or surprising, given Idea 1. This relation is CONCESSION.

Concession discourse markers: Despite the fact that, although, even though

“but” and “however” are CONTRAST discourse markers. Contrast is not the correct logical relation for this sentence.
“without” indicates a lack. Using “without” is wrong because it does not express that the absence of signs of disease was unexpected and surprising.