<p>Hi guys! I got stuck on a couple of questions from the first test of the Blue Book-first edition. Although the book gives you answers, they don't give you any explanations (those sneaky CB practice test makers) and as a college confidential devout follower, I entreat your help! Thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>The first question is on section 7 question number 11</p>
<p>The words in parenthesis are the words underlined. Ready? here we go!</p>
<p>(With billions of tons) yet to be mined, some argue that coal conservation measures are unnecessary.</p>
<p>(A) With billions of dollars
(B) Because billions of tons of coal are
(C) Because of coal in billions of tons
(D) By considering that there are billions of tons
(E) Aware of the coal in billions of tons</p>
<p>Second one is question 30 which is based off a passage. If you own a copy of this book, it'll be sweet if you could look at this question and insert an explanation.</p>
<p>It would also be nice if you could explain it thoroughly and without inflated grammatical terms. Again, thank you for your efforts and time. I look forward to your hopefully quick replies. Ciao.</p>
<p>I think it’s B</p>
<p>A is wrong b/c it kinda says the subject has the billions of tons
C is wrong bc it is very inconcise
D - same reason for B
E - MAYBE. Still, it’s pretty inconcise.</p>
<p>For this question it’s B. My explanation is:
A: It’s ambiguous. You can’t tell what you have billions of tons of.
C: This just sounds horribly wrong.
D: You shouldn’t start the sentence with “By.” Using By makes the sentence sound awkward. Also, this is like A - there is an ambiguity.
E: Also sounds bad.</p>
<p>I just used process of elimination and watched out for ambiguities.</p>
<p>The answer is B because the sentence is talking about the billion tons of coal. In the original sentence there isn’t any reference to what is actually being mined. B is the best choice because it has “coal” in it and also because it is the most concise/reads the best. </p>
<p>For 30, the answer is D (Delete “that are arising”) because it just sounds off, as well as because it’s the best answer when compared with the other choices.</p>
<p>Sorry if these explanations sound half-assed, it’s just hard for me to explain the reasoning because for these I didn’t really think of a specific grammar rule, the answers just “sounded” right in relation to the other choices.</p>
<p>Hopefully someone else can give some better reasoning.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. yeah, it’s fine if you can’t explain it any other way. I just wanted to understand how the real answer is arrived.</p>