SAT Question of the Day

[graylocks]

Saturday, April 11

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.

Long one of the(A) favorite characters of(B) American folklore, Hiawatha is© best known to be(D) the hero of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha. No error(E)

A. (A)
B. (B)
C. ©
D. (D)
E. (E)

[spoiler=Answer]
Correct Answer: D

* Here's Why:

The error in this sentence occurs at (D), where there is an improper idiom. The idiom is “best known as,” not “best known to be.”
* Question Type: Identifying Sentence Errors
(Writing)

I picked E because though I might have phrased the sentence differently, I thought it was grammatically correct. Are idioms cast in stone?
[/spoiler]

[Carnos Jax]

You know, I picked the correct answer, but only because it 'seemed' to me to not somehow sound right. I can't think of a single rule otherwise.

[rgG]

I got it right!!!! What do I win?

[graylocks]

Carnos Jax wrote:
You know, I picked the correct answer, but only because it 'seemed' to me to not somehow sound right. I can't think of a single rule otherwise.

i would have chosen that answer also but then i thought, well - i'd write it otherwise but it's not really wrong. so it came down to a judgment call. i'm just curious as to if there is a hard fast rule somewhere or if this just shows the problems inherent in a standardized test.

the site shows a pie chart on the day's participants. out of 59,000+ responders, 51% are choosing incorrectly so i'm not alone!

[AlphaDog]

Carnos Jax wrote:
You know, I picked the correct answer, but only because it 'seemed' to me to not somehow sound right. I can't think of a single rule otherwise.

Same here. Of course I'm one of those people who never has been able to recite those rules of grammar.

[AlphaDog]

Might it have something to do with "action"? I told you I can't recite rules! The phrase "to be" always strikes me as something that's going to happen in the future. I would have used the word "as", which I think of as being something that already exists.

[JoeH]

I got it right, recognized the idiom. As written the phrase has small mismatch of tense.

[jimbrady]

Something can be "best known," or, "known to be," but combining them is wrong. Using an idiom incorrectly is just as wrong as using a word incorrectly.

[Mr Downtown]

This seems to test familiarity with idiomatic English, not actual knowledge of rules of grammar, much less propensity for success in college study. It's most effective use would seem to be in weeding out testtakers who come from a non–English speaking home.

[JoeH]

Mr Downtown wrote:
This seems to test familiarity with idiomatic English, not actual knowledge of rules of grammar, much less propensity for success in college study. It's most effective use would seem to be in weeding out testtakers who come from a non–English speaking home.

The verb tenses still don't match, even if the question can also be figured out by the use of a common idiom. It might weed out English as a second language persons, but it will also get a fair number of English speakers who will get it wrong. Similar to a lot of SAT questions I have seen, many have more than one way to figure out the correct answer.