Idioms

Link of the Day

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." These words are probably quite familiar to you (although hopefully, you've never had a police officer read them to you). The "Miranda Rights" were established in a Supreme Court case on this day in 1966. You can read more about the trial and conviction of Ernesto Miranda and the resulting supreme court case here.

6/13 Improving Sentences

Part or all 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.  

The advent of innovative computer and communications technology toward the end of the twentieth century ushered in a new era, not dominated by industry anymore, rather it was information.

When you are working on an improving sentences problem it is always a good idea to make a prediction. Even though the correct answer may not match your prediction, it will help if you know why the original sentence is wrong or, perhaps, why it is right). This sentence should sound wrong to you as it is. The sentence should read " . . . dominated not by industry, but by information." Now that you have a prediction, it's time to look at the answer choices.

(A) era, not dominated by industry anymore, rather it was information
(B) era, it was dominated by information over industry
(C) era, which was not dominated anymore by industry but rather information
(D) era dominated by information rather than industry
(E) era dominated not by industry, but it was information

(A) does not work (because it is the same as the original sentence)
(B) has a random "it." You don't know if the word "it" refers to "the innovative computer and communications technology . . ." or the "era."
(C) is awkward and also lacks parallelism. It should at least read "was not dominated anymore by industry, but rather by information."
(D) is very simple and straightforward. That is actually a good sign that (D) is the correct answer. It is clear and doesn't have a random "it".
(E) is incorrect because the last part of the phrase should ready "dominated not by industry, but by information."

The correct answer is (D)

on sat.collegeboard.org 73% of the responses were correct.