SAT Question?

Question

What is wrong with this sentence?

When people gave up the hunter-gatherer way of life and began to cultivate the soil and grow their food, they often became less mobile, built more substantial residences, and they developed more effective means of storage.

Answer 1

This is from the Writing section of the SAT, right?

Note that the sentence is structured as a list. Immediately, when you see a list, you should suspect and check for* problems with parallel structure.

The first part of the sentence sets up that there were some effects when the hunter gatherers began farming. The second part of the sentence lists these effects.

In a list, every element has to be grammatically structured the same way. For example, "I went to the store to get eggs, milk, and I bought a loaf of bread too." Bad, right? The list is set up so that the writer is listing nouns that he bought, so it should read, "I went to the store to get eggs, milk, and a loaf of bread, too."

Here, the first element in the list is "became less mobile."

The second element is "built more substantial residences."

The third element is "they developed more effective means of storage."

Not parallel to the first two, is it? It should read "developed more effective means of storage."

Again, whenever you see a list-type sentence on the SAT writing, check for this problem.

*Note parallel structure in this sentence! "Suspect" and "check for" are parallel forms of verbs so that they can both follow "you should..." You wouldn't say, "You should suspect and checking for..."

Answer 2

Comma usage; and phrasing. I think it should be: People became less mobile when they gave up the hunter-gather way of life and began to cultivate the soil and grow their food. They built more substantial residences and developed more effective means of storage.

Answer 3

Misuse of commas

Answer 4

hunters dont gather?