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The police accused him of ..... fire to the building but he denied ..... in the area on the night of the fire.
A/ setting/having been
B/ setting/being
C/ having set/having been
D/ set/be
I have just finished my homework. This question makes me confused. I chose C and now I am wondering whether A is more correct. Please help.
C is correct! You get an A+ :up:
What's 'wrong' with B?Quote:
Originally Posted by Searching for language
My question too!Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006
I like 'B'!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Barb_D
It's just better academic grammar, I'd say.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006
The police accused him of having set fire to the building but he denied having been in the area on the night of the fire.
The reference is clearly to past time, that is to say anything that happened before the accusations and denial.
The police believed that he had set fire to the building but he denied that he had been in the area on the night of the fire.
There's nothing wrong with B.
The only one that's not possible is D.
I suspect however, that A is the expected answer, because it is more 'marked' than B or C. The test-setter could be testing whether the student understands that the "not being in the area" happened at a time prior to the "being accused", and the tester believes that two different tenses are needed to express this. The tester would be wrong, of course, but that is a perennial problem.
[rant]
Frankly, I think the person who initiated this idea of multiple choice grammar questions written by non-native teachers has done a grave disservice to second language pedagogy. People don't speak in isolated multiple choice sentences.
[/rant]
Maybe. But do the students who are burdened with these tests understand that the answer is supposed to reflect good academic grammar that almost no native speaker would use in normal speech or writing?Quote:
Originally Posted by engee30
That's the problem, I'm afraid. :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymott
But in this one-sentence case, it seems likely that the students are supposed to pick one of the four options, three of which are acceptable regardless their usage. If a student can't differentiate between them, he or she may be perceived by the professor as the one who may need more attention and help. I may be wrong though. :-|
No, I think you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by engee30
If more than one choice is right, the student must rely on meta-linguistic information. What is the trick here? What is the teacher actually trying to assess with this question? Why would the tester want me to tick this correct answer rather than that correct answer ...?