<p>Over the last week or so I have been studying for the ACT English section by reading over Barron’s English review section. I decided today to take a practice test to see how well I was absorbing the material… I ended up getting 7 questions wrong. I am going to post the questions that I missed… because there are some that I just don’t understand after reading what the explanation is in the answer key… If you could explain why I missed the question I would greatly appreciate it…</p>
<p>“Doubts about the accepted theories of the fever’s spread prompted the U.S. Army to assign Reed and several doctors to the problem. They studied yellow fever in Cuba, where they were infecting soldiers fighting in the Spanish American War at an alarming rate.”
F: NO CHANGE
G: it was
H: the doctors were
J: the Army was
The Answer was G, I put down J but none of the choices sounded right at the time…</p>
<p>“Eventually, a vaccine was developed, which reduced further the outbreaks of yellow fever incidences.”
A: No change
B: which further reduced the incidence of yellow fever outbreaks.
C: which is often too expensive for poor residents of tropical countries who are most susceptible to yellow fever.
D: and it was no longer necessary for people to risk their health and lives to determine the cause and spread of yellow fever.
The Answer was D, I chose B</p>
<p>“Nobel knew that nitroglycerin, the basis for dynamite, had great potential as a useful substance, but he also knew that a big part of his work must resolve the safety issues in addition.”
A: NO CHANGE
B: issues.
C: issues, also.
D: issues, too.
The Answer was B, I chose C</p>
<p>The rest of them were stupid mistakes… thanks for any help you can give…</p>
<p>Look at their explanations. it’s hard to know what you did wrong with just the sentence given. A lot of the times, you have to read the paragraph to understand which verb tense, etc. should be used. But what I did, especially with English and Math, is took practice tests and see which ones I got wrong and then made a list of “English/Math tips”. This helped me absorb stuff I usually didn’t understand before. Fore xample, I never understood the triangle rule (sum of two sides must be greater than the third), but by writing stuff like that down, I ace the problems that require this knowledge.
I hope you know what I mean lol. And I think 7 wrong in Barron’s isn’t that bad. Probably translate into 2-3 wrong on the real thing</p>
J does not make sense - the Army was not infecting the soldiers - yellow fever was infecting soldiers so G is correct
'They studied yellow fever in Cuba, where it was infecting soldiers fighting in the Spanish American War at an alarming rate."</p>
<p>
The sentence already includes the word ‘also’ so using ‘in addition’, ‘also’, or ‘too’ duplicates something that has already been said. You would not say ‘I also got this question wrong also’. You would say ‘I also got this question wrong’ </p>
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<p>Hmm I would probably have chosen B also. But Looking at it it is probably because of the context of the paragraph within the whole passage. Was the passage about ‘Reed’ rather than about yellow fever specifically? The paragraph you posted starts of saying ‘Doubts about the accepted theories of the fever’s spread prompted the U.S. Army to assign Reed and several doctors to the problem’-so once a vaccine had been developed it was "no longer necessary for people to risk their health and lives to determine the cause and spread of yellow fever’. If the passage had been about yellow fever and the amount of outbreaks then the B might have been correct. But it was actually about them (Reed & others) being assigned to a problem and once the problem was no longer there it was not neccessary etc etc. Tricky one.</p>
<p>Wow thanks. I think I need to do a couple more practice tests, because about 5 out of 7 were just really stupid mistakes… and the last question, the paragraph it was in talked about the results of Reed’s findings and the bravery of volunteers and how they were able to keep the mosquitoes away from people…</p>