Writing Questions

fogcity
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:00:30 +0000

The A(oldest) examples of alphabetic writing discovered so far B(are) almost 4,000 years old, but, because C(they are) written in an obscure alphabet, D(it) cannot be translated completely. No error



Clearly as you note D is wrong.

Is C wrong? I would write “they were”.

Perhaps the test writer will argue that the “examples are written in an obscure language” is a “fact” and therefore the present tense applies. In any case this is much too subtle for the actual SAT. I wouldn’t spend much time worrying about this use.