If you are reading this in an email you received from me, do not click the link to sat.collegeboard.org below. Use the link to my website that is farther down on the email.
If you are seeing this in my blog, do the SAT Question of the Day by clicking on this link:
http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-question-of-the-day?questionId=20131117&oq=1 (This link takes you to today’s question. If you use my archive, you will see the question related to my SAT explanation for that date.)
The answer is C. One of the most common grammar errors you will see on the test is a “redundant” or unnecessary pronoun. I discuss this issue on Video #9 and list it as a “pronoun error” in Demystifying the SAT and ACT as well as on my website. For more details, take a look at those resources.
Never use a pronoun right after the noun it represents. In this case, the test writer makes it a little sneaky by including the phrase that is set off by commas. Eliminate the phrase and you would have “technology it…” Yuck! “It” is unnecessary. The other problem is like vs. as. “Like” is used to compare two things (usually nouns), for example, “George looks like Mike.” “As” is not used to compare nouns; rather it is used with a verb. For example, “George runs as fast as Mike.” In this example, as compares the verb runs, not George with Mike. So, for this sentence you had to fix two errors.
Let’s see what the ACT folks have for us this morning.
ACT Question of the Day: Use your “back” button to return to my website after reading the ACT Question of the Day.
The answer is H. The most important thing you can learn from this sentence is to disregard the ACT directions that tell you to read the entire passage first and then come back and fix the mistakes. That’s terrible advice and not even directions. Go directly to #14 and you’ll see why I say that. You can almost always fix the mistakes by reading only the sentence. For this question, the rest of the sentence that is not underlined is in the past tense, “…philosophers had to stand aside…” Therefore, both “dances” and “plays” have to be in the past tense. You would change it to “danced and played,” Answer H.
Enjoy your friends and family today.
The SAT & ACT Wizard
