Idioms

Link of the Day: 

Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and one of the reasons you have books, magazines, and newspapers all around you today. He was also instrumental in starting the Protestant Reformation; by printing and distributing Martin Luther's 95 Theses, Gutenberg helped to get enough people mobilized against the Catholic Church that they eventually left it.

3/21 Improving Sentences

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A. 

Remember to read the sentence and predict any corrections before looking at the answer choices. Prediction is one of the most powerful tools in your toolbox. It will save you time and help you get more questions right, so use it as often as possible!

Johannes Gutenberg is generally credited to bring together the two main concepts of modern printing: movable pieces of metal type that could be reused, and a printing press for producing sharp images over and over.

The underlined phrase has the word "to," usually used as a preposition, and the verb "bring." However, these don't sound quite right following the word "credited;" the common saying is "credited with," not "credited to." ("Credited to" is correct in certain circumstances, as when discussing finances, but it is not correct here.)



You could take this a step further and reason that no one would say "credited with bring together," and change the verb to "bringing." This replaces "to bring," an infinitive, with a prepositional phrase that modifies the word "credited." Now take a look at the answer choices:

A) to bring

B) as he brought

C) by bringing

D) with bringing

E) for the fact of bringing

As it happens, your prediction matches exactly with choice D; D is the correct answer.


On sat.collegeboard.org, 67% of responses were correct.


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