writing! Help!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

friends of dreiser reported that he was fired from his first job (for the reason that his news stories were sympathetic always for the poor)

a. same
c. because his sympathy to the poor was always in his stories
e. because his news stories were always sympathetic to the poor

i answered c, but apparently the CB says that c is false because there’s an incorrect idiom. I assume it should be “sympathy for” ? but i searched the correct idiom for sympathy and to is right. Can someone explain this to me please?
answer is e btw

2

“sympathetic to” is a correct idiom. Note that “sympathetic” is an adjective.
“sympathy for” is also a correct idiom. Note that “sympathy” is a noun.

“sympathy to” is neither correct nor incorrect. You will see it in phrases like “he showed sympathy to the poor” – but the idiom being used here has nothing to do with “sympathy”; rather, the idiom is “show [x] to,” and “sympathy” just happens to fill the “x” spot.