Writing Question

<p>Can someone tell me what they think the answer to this question would be-</p>

<p>(Despite) having fared poorly (in each of the last five seasons), the cheerleaders (on the squad) remained confident in their ability to defeat (any team) in their division.</p>

<p>See below.</p>

<p>This question doesn’t make sense. Cheerleaders don’t play in teams and therefore don’t fare poorly or defeat teams. Teams defeat teams, but they do not defeat themselves, so you say “a team defeats any other team” as opposed to “a team defeats any team,” because “any team” includes the aforementioned team.</p>

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<p>Good point. The question’s diction is indeed somewhat illogical, but the question-writers probably consider (D) to be the answer.</p>

<p>Is this from the College Board?</p>

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<p>Cheerleaders do compete in teams…
People often say “We can beat any team in our league” or something similar, is that colloquial?</p>

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<p>Denotatively, “team” is fine; “squad” would have made the meaning less ambiguous, though.</p>

<p>this question is from McGraw-Hill. I just wanted to see what you guys thought. I thought it was a really dumb question. The explanation they give is similar to the one above.</p>

<p>If I remember correctly, there was a College Board question that tested one’s ability to correct “any” to get the more logical “any other.”</p>