Private Tutor Sat Writing 2013-2014 Prep Course

103

Revised sentence:

After working for a few years in a corporate job,
A
the young woman decided that working at a small
B working at a large corporation Unclear Comparison
boutique firm was better than a large corporation.
C D
No error
E

Correct Answer: (D)

9. As adults, social wasps live not in nests of
   A B
   their own making but rather in nests made by
   C D
   the queen. No error
   E

Seems okay, but go through the answers just in case.

(A) “as” is a preposition. It might be helpful to simplify and flip flop the sentence to test the preposition.
Social wasps don’t live in nests as adults. That works.
(B) “live not.” Yes, it does sound a bit weird, but it’s fine. It translates to, “do not live.” It’s just
a fancier way to say it.
(C) “their” is a pronoun. First check for ambiguity. “Their” refers to “wasps,” so that works, and
wasps is plural, so pronoun agreement works, and the “nests” belong to them, so “their” is
correctly a possessive pronoun.
(D) Check the preposition “by.” The meal was made by the cook. It’s passive, but grammatically
correct.

Correct Answer: (E)

10.Those entrepreneurs who started dot coms just
A B
as the Internet boomed in the early 1990s were

either wise or extraordinary lucky. No error

C D E

This one’s an easy fix if you can spot the error! We have an Adjective/Adverb Error.

(A) “who” is a pronoun that refers to “entrepreneurs” so that checks fine.
(B) “started” is a past tense verb. The sentence refers to the early 1990s, so we are in the past.
(C) when we see “either” we want to check to make sure there is an “or.” Yes, we have an either/or
set up.
(D) “extraordinary” is an adjective so we need to make sure it isn’t supposed to be an adverb. What
is it modifying? The adjective “lucky.” Adjectives don’t modify adjectives, so we need to make
extraordinary an adverb, extraordinarily.