Anyone know why this past SAT question is correct?

tommykirkpatrick
Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:28:44 +0000

If E gives you this sentence: “The crowds that flocked to the world’s fair in New York in 1895 were larger and more enthusiastic ‘in comparison to those at the World’s Fair in Paris’ had been a few years earlier”

then it’s incorrect.
“had been” should be eliminated, so that the end of the sentence would read “in comparison to those at the World’s Fair in Paris a few years earlier.”

In the original sentence, “had been” refers to the crowds. The crowds had been larger and more enthusiastic a few years earlier. In the sentence that answer E gives you, “had been” shouldn’t be there because we are no longer talking about the crowds, but rather the World’s Fair in Paris. We aren’t talking about the crowds in this sentence because we substituted it with “those” in “in comparison to those.” In other words, if the two world’s fairs had been in the same year, the end of the sentence could simply be “in comparison to those at the World’s Fair in Paris.” No “had been” there. The “few years earlier” part is in there to throw people off.

That probably sounded really confusing, but hope it helps.