Problem
If
y
is 45 percent of
x
and
z
is 25 percent of
x
, what is
y
+
z
in terms of
x
?
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PSAT: Improving Paragraphs Question #2 |
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The following passage is an early draft of an essay about the author's mother. Some parts of the passage need to be revised.
(1) The meals my mom prepared when I was a child would be a present-day dietitian's nightmare, although I didn't know it then. (2) When I was very small, for breakfast we'd have lumpy oatmeal with lots of sugar, or eggs fried in butter, with sausage on the side; for lunch, salami sandwiches with mayonnaise and an iceberg lettuce salad; for dinner, more iceberg (or maybe Jell-O), canned vegetables, round steak rolled in flour and fried within an inch of its life, and store-bought pie with whipped cream for dessert. (3) Other kids liked to come to our house for a sugar fix! (4) Later on, when I was a teenager and frozen provender became available my mom took to it with perfervidity. (5) She gloried in Banquet TV dinners, frozen pot pies, Sara Lee cheesecake that you just had to defrost and dig into.
(6) Oh, I'll eat bran muffins and sprouts and soy sandwiches. (7) In the dark of night, worrying about my cholesterol, I realize they're good for me. (8) In fact, given my childhood eating habits, I'm surprised I've lived this long! (9) But before you start feeling sorry for me, thinking I must have been a neglected child, you should know that I still like that kind of food best. (10) But I still prefer Wonder Bread to the 6-Grain Sour Dough you buy in the health food store, and I'll still take Mrs. Smith's frozen apple pie with Cool Whip before low-fat yogurt for dessert.
(11) So Mom wasn't Suzy Homemaker, or a fiber-gram-counter type, so what? (12) It didn't mean she was neglectful or lazy. (13) Mealtime was the only time she allowed herself to stop working and sit down. (14) Born in the early 1900s to a stoic, Calvinistic family, she grew up laboring on a farm from dawn to dusk. (15) That couldn't have been any fun--and she liked to have fun. (16) Sometimes I think she must have been a changeling, left on her somber parents' doorstep by mistake. (17) Basically she liked leisure and things of the flesh, although she rarely gave in to them.
(18) She may not have liked to cook. (19) She did like to eat. (20) Mealtime was festive at our house. (21) We never discussed serious topics at dinner, or bickered and argued at the table like some families do. (22) We were too busy talking about how good the food was and asking for seconds!
Question:
Which of the choices is the best revision of the underlined portion of sentence (4) below?
Later on, when I was a teenager and frozen provender became available my mom took to it with perfervidity.
Choices:
The correct answer is (C). This choice fits best with the style of the rest of the passage. Choice (A) is wordy. The other choices contain words that are either too informal ("chow", "victuals"), too formal ("good inclination", "fare"), or too pseudo-poetic ("blithe spirit") to fit the language of the rest of the essay. Also, choice (E) isn't so active or interesting a sentence as choice (C) and there's no indication that Mom wasn't happy before frozen food came along.
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