Style

Writing: 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.  

Read the entire sentence to yourself, listening for errors.  Then focus in on the underlined portion, and evaluate it using the Big 8 Grammar Rules.

The first public botanical garden in the United States, the Elgin Botanic Garden in New York City was established to provide plant materials for studying by medical students.

The underlined portion of the sentence should sound awkward and wordy to you.  Look at the phrase “by medical students.”  You normally use the word “by” with a finished product.  For example, a book is “by an author,” but these medical students are just studying.  This sentence concerns the reason for something's existence so you know that how you use the word "for" will be important   Why are the plants provided?  The primary reason that they are there is that they are for medical students.  Others can also study these plants, but they are intended for medical students.  The correct answer will probably have the preposition “for” followed by “medical students.”

(A) for studying by medical students

(B) for medical students to study

(C) to medical students for their study

(D) for the study of medical students

(E) that medical students will study

(A)  This answer choice matches the awkward original.  Eliminate it.

(B)  This answer choice matches your prediction, and it is clear and concise.  Keep it.

(C)  This answer choice is not glaringly incorrect, but it is not as concise as it could be.  You can construct the sentence so that the pronoun “their” is unnecessary.  Eliminate this choice.

(D)  This answer choice subtly changes the meaning of the sentence.  Now it seems as if the medical students are being studied!  Eliminate this choice.

(E)   This answer choice seems okay, but remember that the original sentence is about the purpose of the plants.  The plants should be there for a specific group of people or a specific reason.  This answer choice makes the medical students of secondary importance and does not adequately indicate the purpose of the plant materials.  The park seems as if it was established simply to provide plants.  Eliminate this choice.

The correct answer is (B).

On sat.collegeboard.org, 72% of the responses were correct.

For more help with SAT writing, visit www.myknowsys.com!

ACT Question of the Day:

The ACT English questions are structured a little differently than the Grammar questions on the SAT, but they test the same rules.  Check out this question:

The RCA executives who created the 
powerful NBC network were right to see that
sizable profits would come from this new medium.

Choose the best alternative for the underlined part.

(A) NO CHANGE

(B) which

(C) having

(D) as

To answer this question correctly, all you have to know is that executives are people.  When you refer to people you use the word “who.”

The correct answer is (A).

For the ACT Question of the Day, visit http://www.act.org/qotd/.

For more help with ACT questions, visit www.myknowsys.com!

Style

Writing: 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.  

Read the original sentence to yourself, listening for errors.  Then evaluate the underlined portion of the sentence using the Big 8 Grammar Rules.  Focus on the first error that you find to quickly eliminate wrong answer choices.

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.

This sentence has a style problem: it uses very complicated language to say something very simple.  You want to convey the meaning that the era was dominated by information instead of industry.  Look for a concise way to say this that is grammatically correct.

(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)  This answer matches the original wordy sentence.  Eliminate it.

(B)  This answer is a comma splice (two sentences incorrectly joined by only a comma.)  Eliminate it.

(C)  This sentence is better than the original, but you do not need both “but” and “rather.”  Both words show contrast, so they are redundant.

(D)  This answer is clear and concise.  Keep it.

(E)  This answer has a random and unassociated “it.”  Avoid answers that include pronouns without an antecedent.  Eliminate it.

On sat.collegeboard.org, 70% of the responses were correct.

For more help with SAT writing, visit www.myknowsys.com!

Subject-Verb Agreement

Link of the Day

Teachers and schools have gone back and forth on the value of rote memorization. Some claim that forcing students to endlessly repeat facts and processes only kills their creativity. Others argue that practice is essential to make certain information and tasks automatic--freeing up mental energy for higher-level applications. One value of memorization and repetition is that it can be highly effective as a way to learn facts on your own, without a teacher or classroom. If you've ever used vocabulary flashcards or a multiplication app, you've experienced rote learning! Learn more about the value of memorization here, and sign up for the Knowsys online vocabulary flashcards here. 

7/31 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. 

Read the following sentence to yourself, listening for errors.  Evaluate the underlined portion using the Big 8 Grammar Rules and predict a correction for any errors that you find.  Remember that after an improving sentences question, choice (A) will always be the same as the original sentence.  Eliminate any answer choices that do not help you towards your goal of creating a clear and precise sentence.

Rote learning, the process of memorizing by repetition, is how many young children learn the alphabet or the multiplication tables.

The underlined portion of this sentence includes a verb.  The third Big 8 Grammar Rule concerns subject and verb agreement.  Think back to this section in your Knowsys book.  You learned that the exam writers use 5 subject/verb tricks to make identifying a subject/verb agreement error more difficult.  One of these tricks is to separate subjects from verbs.  In this sentence, the subject is separated from the verb by an appositive phrase. An appositive phrase is a defining phrase that is set off by commas.  Because this phrase merely defines the subject, you should be able to ignore that portion of the sentence and still have a complete sentence.  You have now simplified the sentence to read: “Rote learning is how many young children learn the alphabet or the multiplication tables.”

You can now easily see that the subject matches the verb.  You can also see that for this to be a complete sentence, the very first word in the underlined portion must be a verb.  You want your subject and verb to be as close as possible, so you can eliminate any answer choices that do not begin with a verb.