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MaverickK Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

Wilson commission

0Hi,02br
02br
00Please look at the following sentence.Only one of the 5 options is correct.I can not understand which one is correct and why are the remaining incorrect.02br
02br
00Please explain and help.02br
02br
00In presenting his 01i00modus vivendi 02i00proposal, Lansing implied that the American government accepted the German view that armed merchant vessels were warships: however, 01u00when the proposal was dropped by the Wilson administration, it02u00 seemed to be reverting to the British view on this question.02br
02br
00(A) when the proposal was dropped by the Wilson administration, it02br
02br
00(B) after it was dropped, the Wilson administration02br
02br
00(C) by dropping the proposal, the Wilson administration02br
02br
00(D) the Wilson administration dropped the proposal when it02br
02br
00(E) when they dropped the proposal, the Wilson administration0-
  

Top answer

The 'it' here refers to 'the Wilson administration'. 02br 02br 01font 00(C) by dropping the proposal, the Wilson administration 02font 00This suggests that the 'dropping' was the reason for the 'seeming'. 02br 02br 01font 00(E) when they dropped the proposal, the Wilson administration 02font 00This seems OK to me.

— Clive

  • The 'it' here refers to 'the Wilson administration'.
  • 02br 02br 01font 00(C) by dropping the proposal, the Wilson administration 02font 00This suggests that the 'dropping' was the reason for the 'seeming'.
  • 02br 02br 01font 00(E) when they dropped the proposal, the Wilson administration 02font 00This seems OK to me.
  • It's just active instead of passive.
  • Perhaps the 'they' could be interpreted to refer to the American government' rather than 'the Wilson administration'.
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14 Answers
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0Hi,02br
02br
01font00Please look at the following sentence.Only one of the 5 options is correct.I can not understand which one is correct and why are the remaining incorrect.02font02br
02br
01font00Please explain and help.02font01font00 Did you type a c
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0Thanks for your reply Clive.The colon was there in the original sentence.As for your answers,I understood why B,D and E are eliminated.I have been told that the correct answer is C. So now I can not understand why is C correct and A incorrect. Is it because "reverting to" has been used in the last clause,therefore "dropping the proposal" should be used instead of "proposal was dropped" in the p
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0(C) is the only one without any pronouns to obscure the meaning.02br
00Also (C) is the only one that gives a reason why the Wilson administration seemed to be reverting to the British view. All the others simply mention a relation in time (01i00when, after02i00). The relationship between cause (dropping the proposal) and effect (the appearance of reverting t
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0I could not completely understand this explanation. According to my understanding,even option A is giving the reason why the Wilson administration seemed to be reverting to the British view.Please explain more lucidly.02br
02br
00 Another question - Is option A grammatically perfectly correct?0-
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0Hi,02br
02br
01font01b00I understood why B,D and E are eliminated.02b02font02br
02br
01font01b00I have been told that the correct answer is C. So now I can not understand why is C correct02b00 00As I noted before, in C the word 'by' adds an element of mean
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Clive12cite10adds an element of meaning that is not in the original.12blockquote
10 Clive,02br
00Just a "technical note". There is no "original". The task does not involve finding the best paraphrase for the words in the header. 02br
00 In these exercises, answer A always appears in t
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0 Hi,02br
02br
00I see, thank you. I hope that such exercises come with instructions for the students, if not for us.02br
00Is one supposed to select the phrasing that seems 01i00most likely / most common,02i00 or all that are grammatically possible?02br
02br
00Clive 0-
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0 Typically the instructions ask the student to choose the (one) "best" answer -- the implication being that they may all be correct grammatically, but that some are better than others. Sometimes semantics and sometimes stylistic considerations come into play.02br
00Jim 0-
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0 Hi Jim,02br
00That's what I thought.02br
00I guess that such test have their place. But I think that, often, the student does not realize that other answers are at all possible grammatically, but instead thinks that there is 'only one correct answer'. I'm not even sure, in all cases, if the person who sets the questions even considers that other answers are at all possi
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0 Jim is perfectly correct when he said there is no "original" here.I still did not get the answer to my question - Is option A grammatically perfectly correct? Why is option C a better option than option A (a bit more lucid explanation considering me a "forum greenhorn " ) ? 0-
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