Be careful! Flashcards
The second-year students at this college have evolved into insightful, critical thinkers from the inexperienced and uncertain teenagers they were just a year ago.
No error! You can change the order of the pair “from ___ to ___” into “…to ___ from ___.”
The second-year students at this college have evolved into insightful, critical thinkers from an inexperienced and uncertain teenager just a year before.
Error! “teenager” doesn’t agree with “students”.
The United States Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Constitution, and they have the power to declare a state law unconstitutional.
Error! The Court counts as a THING, not as a group of people. The sentence should read “…and it has the power…”
The restoration of the once bustling neighborhood, an area recently marred by litter and graffiti, is one of the high praised efforts of the mayor’s administration.
“high praised” should be changed to “highly praised”.
One way in which orchestra bells differ with the xylophone is that the bells are blue.
…DIFFER FROM!!!
To remember this, note that differ is just like different.
You don’t say different with, you say different from.
Unlike country bands, which often feature the harmonica, rock bands tended to use electronic equipment.
…TEND to use. Note that “which” is fine!
“which” is used for groups or things.
Although we may consider China to be one big country, it is a land of 65 nationalities.
No error! “Consider…to be” is fine, and so is “consider…as”.
It’s “regarded…to be” that’s wrong; that should be “regarded…as”.
(To understand) twentieth-century economic practices, (we must) be sufficiently (familiar with) Keynesian theories, whether one agrees (with them) or not.
“we” does not agree with “one”!
Loman mistakenly believes that his sons have no flaws, which leads to many problems for the entire family.
“which” is vague; it should be replaced by “a belief”! “which” can only be used to describe a specific noun, not a whole clause.
Although the candidate promised both to cut taxes and improve services, he failed to keep either of them after the election.
“them” has nothing to refer to! Switch “promised” to “made promises”.
Identify AND replace the error:
By next year the old vaudeville theater had been converted into two small theaters in which films can be shown.
“had been” is clearly incorrect, but what should it be replaced with?
It should be replaced with “will have been” (not “will be”!)
A flurry of do-it-yourself books on the market today are inspiring homeowners to do their own repairs.
ERROR!!!!! The real subject here is “flurry”; thus, “are” should be changed to “is”.
Chess players find that playing against a computer is helpful (to improve) (their) skills, (even though) no chess-playing computer has yet (won) a championship.
“to improve” is idiomatically incorrect; it should be replaced with “in improving”.
Princeton officials first (broke with) a tradition (of awarding) honorary degrees only (to men) when they awarded (it) to author Willa Cather.
Vague pronoun reference! “it” has no singular noun to refer to in the sentence; notice that the phrase “honorary degrees” is part of the phrase “of awarding honorary degrees…”, which describes the “tradition”. Therefore, replace “it” with “such a degree”.
The tiles are sorted not only by their surface appearance but also (according to their hardness and their capacity of conducting heat).
(A) (as is)
(D) by their hardness and their capacity for conducting heat
(E) by their hardness and capacity in heat conduction
(D) is correct.
(A) is wrong because it fails to maintain parallelism.
(E) is wrong because “capacity in” is NOT idiomatic!
