Ted Williams always said that, to get the good pitches he needed to hit .400, he had to have the discipline to leave the lousy pitches alone, earning many bases on balls when he'd rather have been swinging away. When pitchers realized the Splendid Splinter wouldn't swing at the bad balls, they gave him good balls to hit.
It's not an exact analogy, but this fall, when sophomores and juniors sit down for the SAT, it's just as important to be disciplined about nailing the easy questions so it matters when you get the hard ones.
The SAT generally has lots of pesky pronomial expressions without expressed and clearly recognizable antecedents. Two examples:
1) An extraordinary pianist, Arthur Rubenstein's performance was enthusiastically applauded by his audiences, who always demanded encores.
Those crafty College Board people put one red herring answer that eliminates the initial problem but creates another pronoun without an antecedent (and also a missing comma and a little passive voice thrown in). Arthur Rubernstein's audience enthusiastically applauded his performance with encores always being demanded.
Corrected: Arthur Rubenstein was enthusiastically applauded by his audiences, who always demanded encores.
2) Attracted by the colorful banners, booths featuring various ethnic foods tempted the fair-goers.
Corrected: Attracted by the colorful banners, the fair-goers found the various ethnic foods featured in the booths tempting.
More on pesky pronomials tomorrow.
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