Writing Questions

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I got wrong in these questions but still don't understand why. Can someone explain to me the reasons?</p>

<ol>
<li>Most endurance athletes find that regular training is essential to improve race times, but athletic talent also plays a big role in determining how fast an athlete will be on race day.</li>
</ol>

<p>I think that there is no error in the sentence, but the book says that "to improve" is wrong.</p>

<ol>
<li>The student researchers discovered that the fieldwork on the archaeological dig was far more boring than they first expected, having discovered nothing for months except for an old coin that was not very valuable.</li>
</ol>

<p>(A) expected, having discovered nothing
(C) expected: they discovered nothing</p>

<p>(C) sounds great, but what's wrong with (A)?</p>

<ol>
<li>A chain of nine volcanic islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the Azores located over a thousand miles from anything else.</li>
</ol>

<p>The book says that "located" is wrong, probably lacking preposition, I think.</p>

<ol>
<li>Eating garlic has long been regarded as a means of warding off malaise, and scientific research has shown that it does have some therapeutic value.</li>
</ol>

<p>Although I chose "No error", which is the correct answer, I wonder whether the pronoun "it" is ambiguous ("it" may refer to "eating garlic" or "scientific research").</p>

<p>Besides, I would like to know in which order you often do the writing section (I mean the long one). I always do it in the order the questions are presented; however, my teacher told me to do the "Improving paragraph" first, then "Improving sentences", then "Identifying errors" since doing so will save time and prevent me from feeling rushed in the last minutes with the tricky paragraph questions.</p>

2

<p>Oh, I forgot to say: Thanks for spending time reading this awkwardly long post :D.</p>

3

<p>1) First you will change “To Improve” because you have to make it parallel with the tense or form of “in determining” this is called parallelism were are the tenses and verbs in a sentence parallel each other in form and shape.
2)I am sorry i am trying to find a logical explanation for this but all I can say is that choice C is more organized and sounds better like you said.
3) You need a helping verb before located; it should go like this " The Azores is located …"
4) Actually i can’t see that ‘it’ is actually wrong or the book regarded as a choice so it shouldn’t really bother you since its not an option.:D</p>

4

<p>The first three look like McGraw Hill questions (please correct me if I am wrong). My advice is to not spend much (any) time trying to understand these questions.</p>

<p>As far as your fourth question goes, “it” is not underlined and therefore cannot be wrong. I guess you are just asking for your own edification but again I would advise that you not spend much time worrying about things that aren’t being tested. The College Board tests ambiguous pronoun referents in a very specific way and when they do so it will be hidden, but it will not be ambiguous.</p>

<p>An error is not indicated (on the SAT) simply because there are two nouns in a sentence that match the number of an underlined pronoun. There must be some obvious ambiguity. Here is a simplified example.</p>

<p>“John and Jim walked home from the park, and he twisted his ankle.”</p>

<p>Of course there will be introductory clauses and preposition phrases and all sorts of other distractions to hide the error from you, but once you see the error there will be no question that it is an error. In the given sentence, it is fairly obvious that “it” refers to “eating garlic”. Maybe it isn’t completely obviously and maybe that is why it isn’t underlined…</p>

<p>The College Board does not create hard questions the way test prep companies (and your high school teachers) do, by increasing ambiguity. They do so by constructing complex sentences and hiding basic and unambiguous errors inside.</p>

<p>As to your final question, the answer is ‘it depends’. If you are running out of time on the Writing section you are probably losing some easy points by not getting to the Fixing Paragraphs section. But you are probably also spending too much time mulling over difficult (for you) questions earlier in the section that you should just let go. There is plenty of time on the long SAT Writing section and high scorers usually have several minutes left to go back and re-contemplate skipped or guessed questions. There is really no correct strategy as what works for you might not work as well for someone else.</p>

5

<p>^meme1995

  1. I noticed that, but I’m not sure whether the construction “essential in V-ing” exists. By the way, “essential to V” exists for sure.
  2. Surely it is, since (C) is the correct answer LOL ! What puzzled me is how (A) could be wrong :D.
  3. You’re right!
  4. Yeah “it” is not an option, which means that the use of “it” in the sentence must be correct. Therefore, if “has shown” is also correct, meaning that “scientific research” is singular, “it” then can refer to either “eating garlic” or “scientific research”. (Actually, I’m not sure whether “research” can be plural :-?.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

6

<p>^YZamyatin
Actually, the first 3 are from the book “SAT 2400 in just 7 steps”, and the last one is from OG Practice Test 2.</p>

<p>As to the ambiguity error, did you mean that if a pronoun obviously logically refers to a noun, then, regardless of other nouns in the sentence, there will be no error? Correct me if I misunderstood your advice.</p>

<p>In terms of the final question, I usually complete the section just on time and spend much time (more than 6 minutes) on the paragraph questions under super nerve-racking condition; however, when I tried doing the Fixing Paragraph first, I had 1-2 minutes to revise but got several more wrongs in the Identifying Errors. Maybe I will go the latter way.</p>

<p>Thank you very much!</p>

7

<p>This is why random practice tests are troublesome. I suggest that you stick to the mighty College Board :D</p>

<p>1) There’s a little misunderstanding here. We only use either ‘essential to sth’ or ‘essential for sth’ (can’t tell the difference), but in both case what follows the prep is a NOUN, not a VERB so ‘to improve’ is wrong anyway.
Don’t be mistaken by ‘It is essential to do homework’. ‘To’ does not have anything to do with essential. In fact that sentence is just an inversion of ‘To do homework is essential’.</p>

<p>2) No idea :D</p>

<p>3) Check the dictionary. Sth ‘is located’. It cannot locate itself.
4) As long as you read the sentence and understand what it is about, I think everything is fine. Ambiguity is sth you have to pay attention only in the SAT. After that you don’t have to go around look for misused ‘it’, ‘they’, ‘that’ at all, so never mind :D</p>

8

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<p>Yeah, that is McGraw Hill. Their practice questions should be avoided. At the very least they do not follow the same standards used by the College Board to write actual SAT questions. In many cases they are producing questions that you will never see on an actual SAT test.</p>

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<p>You are understanding me correctly. The key is to avoid all ambiguity. You do not have to keep renaming a singular noun simply because there are other singular nouns in the sentence. You can use a pronoun so long as it is clear which noun it is referring to.</p>

<p>Good luck with your studying. I recommend the guides you can find on these boards as well as many of the individual tutors that post here. It seems that in most cases these individuals give much better advice than the big test prep companies.</p>

9

<p>^ursawarrior

  1. So there is “it is essential to do sth” (“it” here is probably indefinite pronoun, I guess), but “sth is essential to do sth” does not exist, right?
  2. Yeah, I have no idea, too. Since (A) is equivalent to “Having discovered nothing…, the student researchers…”, which is completely correct, I don’t know why it’s wrong. Maybe the book means that we should avoid gerunds !? LOL
    3, 4. Agreed!</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

10

<p>^YZAmyatin
Yeah, I didn’t notice the tiny company name. Actually, I did those impractical practice tests because I wanna save the CollegeBoard ones for the full-length experience. Anyway, maybe the best way is to stick to CollegeBoard things.</p>

<p>Yeah, I’m scrolling down the Xiggi’s Advice thread and find it much better than those books.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

11

<p>I did about 2-3 sections this morning and ended up having even about 3-4 minutes to revise (in the long section) by doing the Paragraph questions first. However, the quality was not improved. I still got 6-7 questions wrong. About 2 of them is stupid mistakes, but the rest are way too hard or too subtle, I guess. When I could improve the Identifying Errors ones, I sucked at the Paragraph ones, and vice-versa. In contrast, I got only 1 Improving Sentences ones wrong at most. How can I improve my writing score?</p>

12

<p>1 more question: (from an OG practice test)</p>

<p>A talented and versatile artist, Twyla Tarp has been a dancer, choreographer, and collaborated on various productions.</p>

<p>What’s wrong with “collaborated on various productions” ? I think “has been” is wrong; it should be “was” instead.</p>