Silverturtle's Guide to SAT and Admissions Success

[silverturtle]

<p>

@sporty04

This sounds like a really stupid question but is the sentence always incorrect if there are two different verb tenses (ex. present and past) in that same sentence?

</p>

<p>No. See the section of my guide entitled “Shifting tenses.”</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

Mr. Hanson proudly demonstrated his company’s latest cell phone, a model that flashes the time in color-coded numerals when pressing a button.</p>

<p>“pressing a button” is the error but isn’t “a model that flashes” technically wrong too because the verb tenses should be consistent past tenses and not present tense like “flashes”?

</p>

<p>The model is still able to flash the time even after Mr. Hanson’s demonstration: that is its general function, so the present tense is acceptable.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

Modern bluegrass songs, telling of love and despair and celebrating mountain beauty, reflect the genre’s rural origins.
(A) Modern bluegrass songs, telling of love and despair and celebrating mountain beauty,
(B) Modern bluegrass songs through their telling of love and despair and celebrating mountain beauty,
(C) Because modern bluegrass songs tell of love and despair and also celebrating mountain beauty, they
(D) With modern bluegrass songs that tell of love and despair and celebrate mountain beauty, they
(E) Telling of love and despair, modern bluegrass songs celebrating mountain beauty, and they also</p>

<p>Answer ->A.
HOW? It sounds just weird and incorrect.

</p>

<p>There is no problem with (A). Here is a basic breakdown of the sentence:</p>

<p>Modern bluegrass songs, telling of love and despair and celebrating mountain beauty, reflect the genre’s rural origins.</p>

<p>[Noun phrase (subject)], [participial phrases], [verb] [direct object].</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

I just finished reading the grammar guide, and it was very helpful. Thank you.
I was wondering if you had a concise version of it. A list with all the points we should remember/ errors that we may come across in the exam. That would be extremely helpful; we can always skim through that brief list and remember the points. I hope you don’t get me wrong. I’m just wondering if you’ve made a concise guide like that. If you have, it would be wonderful if you shared it with us. Thank you so much.

</p>

<p>I have not made such an outline. However, you may find it helpful to glance through the topic headers in the SparkNotes guide: [SAT:</a> Improve SAT Score with SparkNotes: The Seven Deadly Screw-Ups](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides). I have not read it, but others have found it helpful. I suspect that some posters have made outlines of the grammar section of my guide; perhaps they would be willing to post them here.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

@silverturtle and others</p>

<p>First run in 1867 and still taking place every summer, the Belmont Stakes, a horse race for thoroughbred three-year-olds, was one of the oldest races in the United States.</p>

<p>(A) was
(B) is
(C) were
(D) are
(E) has been</p>

<p>I might be thinking too technically, but why is the answer A and not E. B/c i thought the present progressive means it is still continuing now…which supports the statement “still taking place every summer.”

</p>

<p>(E) is actually the present perfect, not the present progressive. The present perfect is used when an action has just been completed or when one is emphasizing that an action has occurred in both the past and present. Neither is plausibly the case here.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

ahh silverturtle, this is a more school-related question, but how do you prepare for in-class essays in english and history?

</p>

<p>I’m afraid that I can’t offer much helpful advice here. The in-class essays that I’ve had to write for history have been quite undemanding, and those for English could be prepared for only through a review of the relevant text and my teacher’s comments on it.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

Sentence: Alice and Brian were worried about his scar/their scars.</p>

<p>Now axiomatically, it maybe inferred that his scar refers to Brian’s scar. But since an analytical frame of mind is needed… Either of Brian and Alice could be the male in this sentence, rendering “his scar” ambiguous. Am I right on this?

</p>

<p>The name “Alice” is so typically female and the name “Brian” is so typically male that we can assume that the people to whom the names refer here are in keeping with that.</p>

<p>

Even if “their scars” is used, “their” doesn’t necessarily refer to Alice’s and Brain’s scars. There “their scars” is ambiguous too?

</p>

<p>“Alice and Brian” can be the assumed to be the antecedent of “their” because no other fitting referent appears in the sentence.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>On a timely note, I want to wish everyone good luck on the SAT tomorrow.</p>

[iPacman]

<p>Hey Silverturtle, how do top colleges tend to separate their applicant pool based on SAT scores? Did you say the scores are separated into 3 categories? <2100, 2100-2250, and 2250-2400?</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>^ I have no reason to believe that scores are broken into categories in that way. However, it’s reasonable to believe that any section scores below 700 will have a significant impact for psychological reasons.</p>

[antonioray]

<p>question for silverturtle:</p>

<p>when an action has a noun form, for example, to criticize’s criticism, is the gerund form (criticizing) considered inferior?</p>

<p>Is the gerund ungrammatical then?</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

question for silverturtle:</p>

<p>when an action has a noun form, for example, to criticize’s criticism, is the gerund form (criticizing) considered inferior?</p>

<p>Is the gerund ungrammatical then?

</p>

<p>The gerund would certainly still be grammatical. As for whether the non-gerundial nominalization is preferable whenever possible, I have wondered the same thing myself. Decidedly, “criticism” semantically encompasses “criticizing”; by the same token, however, “criticizing” has a less ambiguous meaning: it is clearly referring to the action. So I would say that using the gerund even when you have a non-gerundial alternative is stylistically fine (and, again, irrefutably grammatical).</p>

<p>It’s an intriguing question. I would be interested in seeing whether any sources comment on this issue.</p>

[antonioray]

<p>gerundial huh?
on a side note, do you use words that you have seen in themselves before or is experience with just one form of a word enough to determine its other forms</p>

<p>(just knowing the noun form allows for the verb form, for example, -ize endings; however, adjective suffixes are more numerous (-ous, -ic, -ine, etc).</p>

[indie500]

<p>Frankly, your passage based reading strategies are vague and ineffective. You put textual passage to such broad terms that it would never work. This is why it would frustrate anyone using your reading strategies. </p>

<p>HOWEVER, the grammar that your cover for the writing section is on key and simple. :)</p>

[kbbm24]

<p>SILVERTURTLE</p>

<p>this was on the oct SAT and was the source of some debate.</p>

<p>The reason the mammal is the dominant (animal or something) is its ability to maintain homeostasis.</p>

<p>is its was underlined and some people think thats the error and others think its NE. Any insight?</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

on a side note, do you use words that you have seen in themselves before or is experience with just one form of a word enough to determine its other forms

</p>

<p>I was fairly certain that “gerundial” is the correct form (“gerundic” sounds incorrect, and “gerundive” is already taken), although I looked it up to confirm.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

Frankly, your passage based reading strategies are vague and ineffective. You put textual passage to such broad terms that it would never work. This is why it would frustrate anyone using your reading strategies.

</p>

<p>I am sorry that you did not find it helpful. However, I tried to avoid vagueness whenever possible, and much of my advice is actually quite concrete (e.g., the process delineation). Indeed, many others have expressed their having benefited from the advice.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

The reason the mammal is the dominant (animal or something) is its ability to maintain homeostasis.</p>

<p>is its was underlined and some people think thats the error and others think its NE. Any insight?

</p>

<p>That sentence looks fine to me.</p>

[papapia]

<p>^don’t you feel as if the “that” is missing from that sentence?</p>

<p>“The reason…is its ability…”</p>

<p>How is that fine? Can you explain your reasoning?</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

don’t you feel as if the “that” is missing from that sentence?</p>

<p>“The reason…is its ability…”</p>

<p>How is that fine? Can you explain your reasoning?

</p>

<p>“that” is necessary only when we are trying to make a clause fit syntactically; “that” renders it a noun clause and, thus, able to be a subject complement for “reason,” as in:</p>

<p>The reason is that he needed a banana. where the form is</p>

<p>[subject] [linking verb] [noun clause serving as subject complement]</p>

<p>When the subject complement for “reason” is a noun (as opposed to a clause), “that” is unnecessary and the noun can serve as the subject complement. Quite frequently we employ this form in speech (the word that is analogous to “ability” in the controversial question is in brackets):</p>

<p>[What] is the reason that you came here?</p>

<p>The reason I went there is my [desire] to commit a crime while under armed supervision.</p>

<p>My [hunger] is the reason for my consumption of you.</p>