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some confusing questions from the Reading Section.

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samarfadl

regular - member

67 posts

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Hi Jason, the answers for these questions from the Reading Section are confusing.

Would you please clarify why should these answers be the correct ones?

Infuriated, Truman took to the radio waves and delivered a burning speech to the public; two days later, he delivered a speech to Congress blasting the striking workers and urging Congress to take unprecedented steps to break the strike, including urging approval to draft striking workers into military service.

The word steps could best be replaced by

a) paces

b) measures

c) stairs

d) suggestions

An alternative to Edison's equipment, the Cinematographe, was developed by Auguste and Louis Lumiere; the Cinematographe was a camera that was lighter than Edison's and could be easily converted into a projector, and it was this machine that turned the motion picture into a worldwide phenomenon.

The word turned could best be replaced by

a) rotated

b) accepted

c) changed

d) alternated

The correct answers should be (b) and (c) respectively.

Would you please clarify the reason for choosing these answers? Especially the reason why we chose "changed" and not "alternated" in the second question.

Thanks in advance Jason :)

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05th January 2009 18:27 p.m.

jasonrenshaw star

guru - founder

1439 posts

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Hi Samar,

For the first question there, both "steps" and "measures" mean taking action or going through a process to achieve a specific goal. As with "take action", "take steps" and "take measures" use the word "take" to indicate this meaning.

"Paces" and "stairs" are distractors using alternative meanings for "steps" which do not fit the meaning of the sentence. Neither of these indicate action to achieve a specific goal.

As for "suggestions", it has a different meaning and an additional clue is that people don't "take suggestions" - "follow" or "act on" suggestions could work, but that is not the main verb (take) used in the sentence.

For the second question, "turn into" and "change into" both have the meaning of transforming from one state into a new/other state. The key clue is "into". You can't really "rotate into", "accept into" or "alternate into".

Also, "alternate" as a verb means to swap between two states or actions, going back and forth between the two. For example, in preparing for your test you may alternate between two different books, first using one, then the other, then going back to the original one. It often occurs with the preposition "between". Obviously, in terms of the reading passage here, the machine in question didn't cause the movie industry to alternate between two states (being one, then another, then the original again). The machine caused a complete permanent change from one state to another, a transformation, hence "turn into" or "change into".

In both cases, there are meaning issues for you to consider, but also collocations (word connections) to give you hints which words can fit and which can't.

I hope that helps,

~ Jason

__________________

"English is as easy or as difficult as you imagine it to be..." www.english-itutor.com

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06th January 2009 01:54 a.m.

samarfadl

regular - member

67 posts

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hi Jason :)

thank you so much for the detailed clarification. now i can see why we chose these answers.

thanks for pointing out the importance of "word connections", sometimes i forget to consider them, and then choosing between the words becomes difficult.

have a nice day Jason and thanks again for your quick reply :)

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06th January 2009 06:32 a.m.

angels67

newbie - member

10 posts

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Hi Jason,

I answered correct also however, I don't know the explanations. Thanks to your explanation to Samar.. It became cleared to me also.

Good day!!

Regards,
Angels67

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07th January 2009 04:09 a.m.

venem

novice - member

26 posts

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Interestingly enough, I have never faced the need to be aware of sentence connectors in any sources on TOEFL...I thought, we are asked for similar words not thinking about placing them in the text, as it were..

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07th January 2009 17:02 p.m.