vocabulary and grammar

Dear teachers,
I have some questions to ask.

No.1. It has been announced that a ________ of distinguished authors will come and judge the literary competition.
a. jury b. panel
I think 'b' is correct. The reason is collocation. We can't chose 'a' is that we can say 'a panel of distinguished authors' but we can't say 'a jury of distinguished authors'. We usually use jury to refer to a group of people. We can say 'The jury is....' etc. Am I right?

No.2. Just as the room that once housed the fireplace was the main gathering place for family members,_________the room housing the computer.
a. so then might be b. so might be then
The key is 'a'. I know it's something to do with 'then'. Is there a rule that 'then' can only be put before a verb?

No.3. Nuclear weapons are probably_______threat to the human race than over-population.
a. no more a terrible b. no more terrible a
I think the key should be 'a'. Am I right?

No.4. English was the native speech of between five and seven million English people and it was, in the words of a contemporary, " of small reach, it stretched no further than this island of ours, naie not there over all."
I don't know what this 'naie is'. Is it a misprinted word? I just can't guess what word should be the correct one. Or is it a word of Old English since the person lived in Shakespeare's ?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[Tdol]

1- I'd go for 'panel'. You could say the jury is made up of...
In BE we could say jury is\are. Our relaxed attitude towards singular and plural is different from many AE speakers.

2- If 'then' took the second position, it is not a comfortable place. It comes there because it is being modified by 'so'.

3 - I'm afraid not- we put the adjective before the article with this structure.

4- I'd spell it 'nay'. It's an old-fashioned negative that still crops up sometimes, often used for emphasis, as here imo.

[jiang]

:D
Thank you very much for your explanation. Now I see.

Best wishes,

Jiang

Originally Posted by tdol

1- I'd go for 'panel'. You could say the jury is made up of...
In BE we could say jury is\are. Our relaxed attitude towards singular and plural is different from many AE speakers.

2- If 'then' took the second position, it is not a comfortable place. It comes there because it is being modified by 'so'.

3 - I'm afraid not- we put the adjective before the article with this structure.

4- I'd spell it 'nay'. It's an old-fashioned negative that still crops up sometimes, often used for emphasis, as here imo.

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

Dear teachers,
I have some questions to ask.

No.1. It has been announced that a ________ of distinguished authors will come and judge the literary competition.
a. jury b. panel
I think 'b' is correct. The reason is collocation. We can't chose 'a' is that we can say 'a panel of distinguished authors' but we can't say 'a jury of distinguished authors'. We usually use jury to refer to a group of people. We can say 'The jury is....' etc. Am I right?

No.2. Just as the room that once housed the fireplace was the main gathering place for family members,_________the room housing the computer.
a. so then might be b. so might be then
The key is 'a'. I know it's something to do with 'then'. Is there a rule that 'then' can only be put before a verb?

No.3. Nuclear weapons are probably_______threat to the human race than over-population.
a. no more a terrible b. no more terrible a
I think the key should be 'a'. Am I right?

No.4. English was the native speech of between five and seven million English people and it was, in the words of a contemporary, " of small reach, it stretched no further than this island of ours, naie not there over all."
I don't know what this 'naie is'. Is it a misprinted word? I just can't guess what word should be the correct one. Or is it a word of Old English since the person lived in Shakespeare's ?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

I agree with TDOL's answers.

1. I have seen #1 before, and would personally select "panel". However, it is possible for a competition to call its evaluators a jury. I have run across that at art shows.

2. This uses a compound conjunction, in the form: just as...so then.

3. The article follows the adjective in this case because of the comparative "more", which modifies "terrible", not "threat".