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sat writing 2
“Being as though the situation is that I want to do well on the SAT and the ACT, I should do some good prep for them.”
(Your ear is no doubt screaming: enough already!)
Here are the answer choices:
A) NO CHANGE
B) Because
C) Although
D) Allowing for the fact that
E) It being the case that
Hopefully you recognized A, D, and E as painfully wordy.
C is interesting because it highlights a naughty trick the test makers like to play on the grammar sections. That is: it’s grammatically correct, but it’s not the correct answer!
How can be? Well, just because it’s grammatically correct, doesn’t mean it makes sense, does it?
“Although” is opposite in meaning from what’s needed for this sentence to work! Very naughty. So, if you’re not paying attention to meaning, you could easily miss this one. Especially because your ear would be fooled. If a word is grammatically correct, it will sound right. Although your ear is almost always correct, this is one way it can be fooled!
But the antidote to this trick is simple: just read carefully!
By the way, did you notice how the correct answer (B) was the shortest choice?
So, the bottom line:
Shortest is best! Good English is never wordy, so look out for wordy answer choices.
And, again, always read carefully! This is simple stuff, but if you mis-read the easiest question, you’ll get it wrong!
Now, let’s do an example of a different kind of question.
