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Lesson 2
10
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ARCO
■ SAT II Subject Tests
4. Double Negatives
Double negatives are not acceptable usage in standard written English.
EXAMPLES:
Not hardly a sound could be heard in the auditorium when the speaker approached the dais to
announce the result of the contest.
In this sentence, not hardly is a double negative. The sentence must read: “Hardly a sound could be
heard in the auditorium when the speaker approached the dais to announce the result of the contest.”
Although she had been hired by the magazine to write book reviews, she knew scarcely
nothing about current fiction.
Scarcely nothing is a double negative. The sentence must read: “Although she had been hired by the
magazine to write book reviews, she knew scarcely anything about current fiction.”
Sentence Structure
1. Parallelism
In a correctly written sentence, similar elements must have a similar form.
EXAMPLES:
To abandon their homes, leave behind their families, and traveling across the ocean required
great courage on the part of the immigrants who moved to America.
In this, the three verb forms abandon, leave, and traveling should be parallel. The sentence is cor-
rected by changing traveling to travel so that the sentence reads: “To abandon their homes, leave behind
their families, and travel across the ocean required great courage on the part of the immigrants who
moved to America.”
The review praised the wit, charm, and interpreting of the recitalist but never once mentioned
her voice.
In this sentence, wit and charm are nouns, so interpreting, too, should be a noun. The sentence is
corrected by changing interpreting to interpretation. So the corrected sentence reads: “The review praised
the wit, charm, and interpretation of the recitalist, but never once mentioned her voice.”
To acknowledge that one has something to learn is taking the first step on the road to true wisdom.
This sentence has a structure similar to a mathematical equation: This is the same as that. Both parts
of the “equation” must have the same form. The sentence is corrected by changing taking to to take.
Corrected, the sentence reads: “To acknowledge that one has something to learn is to take the first step on
the road to true wisdom.”