<p>Although Central Park in Manhattan is better known than Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the designer of both parks, Frederick Law Olmsted, preferred Prospect Park.</p>
<p>The answer is (A)
Although Central Park in Manhattan is better known than Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the designer of both parks, Frederick Law Olmsted, preferred Prospect Park.</p>
<p>But I don’t see why the heck I’m wrong with (E).
Although more people know about Manhattan’s Central Park than Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Frederick Law Olmsted, having designed both, has preferred the latter.</p>
<h2>Someone help me? I see sentences like choice E all the time in the news so I don’t know what the heck is so wrong about it. Does the “more people” part matter or something?</h2>
<p>And also I had an issue with this one…
Some people believe that one day we will establish not only bases on the Moon, but also a landing on Neptune will occur.</p>
<p>I thought the answer was (B)
not only bases on the Moon will be established, but also a landing on Neptune will be made. </p>
<p>But the correct answer is (C)
we will not only establish bases on the Moon but also land on Neptune.</p>
<p>Anyone mind telling me why I’m wrong on these questions?</p>
<p>“in the news”!?!?! Well, if you want to learn incorrect English, watching the news is a terrific way to to do it.</p>
<p>One thing to remember: the writing section is about picking the “best” answers. Some questions actually have two grammatically answers…but one is stylistically better – often because it is shorter and simpler.</p>
<p>In the case of the first question, there is something out of balance with the “more people” bit. Since there is a comparison indicated by the “more…than”, the two things being compared must be parallel. In this case, you need to at least repeat the “about” or perhaps even the “know about” to be parallel…you’re actually comparing the act of people knowing, not just the parks.</p>
<p>Also, there is no reason to change the tense of “preferred” to “has preferred”. “has preferred” is present perfect tense (which indicates a continuing action up until the present time), but the sentence starts in present tense with “is better known”. Stick with the present, OR, if the designer is no longer alive, use the past tense, as answer choice (A) did.</p>
<p>As for your second questions, we’re dealing with parallelism again, but this one is different. The first thing I would say is that (C) is much shorter and simpler…and short and simple is really important. Somewhere between 50% and 70% of the time the shortest or second shortest answer is correct, so short answers are a great place to start.</p>
<p>I’m actually wracking my brain a bit to explain why (B) is wrong grammatically. I think it has to do with what you are comparing here. You’re comparing the action of “establish” and “land”, not the nouns “bases” and “landing”. Your choice (B) sets up the noun parallelism since the nouns follow the “not only” and “but also”.</p>
<p>I’m constantly amazed how badly newscasters speak. I’m not a fanatic about language at all…but the news drives me crazy. Talk about cliched, hackneyed and trite language. Good SAT words, by the way.</p>