Science Passage (grammar/writing)

Don’t read the passage first.

Identify important material if there is a stated question.

Read for context.

Examine the structure of the answers.

Choose the answer that best fits the context and, if applicable, the stated question.

Take time to review any questions you’ve flagged as difficult.

The answer is D. This question combines aspects of punctuation with those of sentence structure, as well as a choice of verb form. The “Clause Test” on CLT Grammar & Writing is a strategy that allows you to determine how to connect clauses in a sentence. The rule for the comma is that a comma alone can only separate two clauses if one of them is incomplete (that is, could not stand on its own as a sentence). Our first task, then, is to evaluate the two clauses for completeness. The first clause stretches from the beginning of the sentence to the word proofs; this clause is complete in that it could stand on its own as a sentence. However, as long as we are retaining the word “showing”, the second clause is not an independent (complete) clause. Beginning with “showing that,” it is a dependent clause describing the “investigations” that Archimedes has undertaken.

These are the perfect conditions for a comma. We cannot use either a period (with new capitalization of the next word) or a semicolon, as both of these punctuation marks are used to join two independent clauses. That leaves us with choices B and D, whose difference lies in the form of the verb to show. The voice is active here, describing what Archimedes has done, so the passive “shown” is inappropriate. The word “showing”, by contrast, works well to introduce a discussion of exactly what his investigations showed.

The answer is A. A “clearest and most concise” question will ask you to eliminate answers that 1) are too wordy (fail to be concise); 2) use unclear phrasing (are not clear); or 3) do not convey all the information given (leave something out). Here, choice B falls into the first of these categories; notice how it is much longer than the original selection. Choice C fails the second test; it is not clearly written, especially in the fact that it puts the phrase “since then” confusingly at the end of the sentence. Choice D is certainly quite concise, but it takes out important information from the sentence. It’s best here to keep the sentence as written.

The answer is D. The issue here is agreement, both with the pronouns (“it” versus “they” and “this” versus “these”) and the verb (“is” versus “are”). In all three cases, as with agreement questions generally, the issue is singular versus plural. We have to read the context in the previous sentence to determine whether singular or plural is called for. In that sentence, Archimedes is only talking about plural things like “theorems” and “proofs.” We’re looking for the uniformly plural answer. Choice A succeeds in pluralizing the pronoun “these” and choice C has the plural “They are,” but only choice D pluralizes all three words.

The answer is C. This question asks us to chose the appropriate possessive pronoun. We know this because the word after the underlined word, “radius”, goes with the word before it, “circle”. The relationship is one of possession: a radius belongs to a circle or a circle possesses a radius.

Once we have identified possession, we ask whether the “possessing” word is a noun or a pronoun. If it’s a noun, we’ll use an apostrophe, either before the s in the case of singular (the girl’s books means one girl) or after the s in the case of plural (the girls’ books means two or more girls). If it’s a pronoun, we don’t use an apostrophe, and this fact helps us distinguish a possessive pronoun from similar forms. For example, consider the classic it’s versus its. The latter of these two is the possessive pronoun; the form with the apostrophe means “it is”.

In this case, we know we have a pronoun because it is pointing to the noun “circle”. Therefore, no apostrophe, so not NO CHANGE. But we do need a possessive form; “who” is simply the subject form, with no possession implied, so choice C is out. And we definitely don’t want to say “who is” here, which would create “a circle who is radius …” Whose is the winner because “whose” is a possessive noun.

The answer is D. This question combines verb tense with subject/verb agreement. For the tense, we need to read the whole sentence (as always!) and notice that the near context includes the phrase “before my time.” This locates the action in the past, eliminating choices A and B. What about agreement? The subject of the verb in this case is “those who,” a plural reference. If we plug in “he/she” as a singular example and “they” as a plural example, we would have “they was” versus “they were.” The latter is correct. Note: the relative pronoun “who” is not enough to tell you whether the verbal is singular or plural, because “who” can work for both. You have to look further back, to the word “those”.