I'm coming in on this thread really late, but I'm not sure that D is the correct answer because of a need to keep Heather/Joanne parallel as much as it is to make sure that the "unlike...." prepositional phrase modifies an appropriate noun. That is, it's Joanne who is unlike her sister Heather--not "fear" (ABC) or "they" (D), right?
My reasoning is based on the prepositional phrase ("unlike...") being adjectival, but maybe I'm incorrect in that assumption.
Larry
Larry Beason
Associate Professor & Composition Director
Dept. of English, 240 HUMB
Univ. of South Alabama
Mobile AL 36688
(251) 460-7861
>>> "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> 05/29/09 11:59 PM >>>
Susan,
You wrote:
FYI, I realize I never revealed the correct answer to the SAT grammar question. It is D. Joanne (as a noun) must be parallel to Heather (as a noun).
Unlike her sister Heather, who would always put spiders safely outside if she found them in the house, Joanne's fear kept her from going anywhere near the creatures.
A. Joanne's fear kept her from going anywhere near the creatures
B. Joanne's fear is what kept her from going anywhere near the creatures
C. fear is why Joanne had not gone anywhere near them
D. Joanne was too afraid to go anywhere near the creatures
E. they scared Joanne too much to go anywhere near them
I find D possible. I find BCE awkward, but I see nothing wrong with the sentence as it is. Context would certainly help me to choose between A and D, but I don't understand why Heather and Joanne must be parallel because they are both nouns, regardless of context, which seems to be what the test question and identifying only D as correct imply. If the topic of the paragraph is "fear," then A works better-or at least as well. Perhaps the passage will be about distinct phobias the sisters have, or about fear as the reason for Joanne's behavior rather than, perhaps, her mother's insistence. I'm sure we could come up with other contexts as well, but the point is that A and D have different structures because they have different meanings. This test question strikes me as an instance of the sort of rigid rule, like the PAP we discussed earlier in connection with this example, that should not be taught. Even if we teach the rule and also teach that other structures work in different contexts, we are still implying, and inviting our students to infer, that there is a default correct structure.
I do understand that this is a standardized test question and not a point you were trying to make, which leads to the broader question we've frequently dealt with on this list, the poor level of grammatical knowledge that leads teachers, editors, employers, and test developers to insist on rules that aren't.
Herb
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