SAT grammar

Question

SAT grammar:

After college Susan King founded a publishing company but eventually reduced her role in the firm to pursue her interests in storytelling and art by creating her own books.

 

Underline:company but eventually reduced

 

I chose E. company, however, she eventually redueced

 

Can you tell me why it is wrong?

Answer 1

The answer you selected results in what is called a "Comma Splice": a comma is used incorrectly to separate two sentences.

 

One of the choices should have offered the solution with a semi-colon after company, and then a comma after however.

 

Note that however cannot fill the role of a coordinating conjunction, and cannot replace a period.

 

After college Susan King founded a publishing company; however, she eventually reduced her role in the firm to pursue her interests in storytelling and art by creating her own books.

 

That would be correct usage.

Answer 2

Qing,

 

Absolutely, I agree with Vivian that the sentence needs a period at the end. The word "However" should be the beginning word of the next sentence.

 

One should not use a semi-colon when the second phrase is not at least somewhat related to the meaning of the first sentence. In this case, the words mentioning a reduction of King's role are not sufficiently related to the words before the semi-colon (the founding of the publishing company.) Rather, they are closer in meaning to that which is the opposite of the words before the semi-colon.

 

You can see excellent examples of the proper use of semi-colons by looking at the Sentence Completions section on the SAT. The words after the semi-colon always restate, in some way, the words before the semi-colon. The recognition of that provides a valuable clue to the student.

Answer 3

Hi Qing;

 

After college Susan King founded a publishing company but eventually reduced her role in the firm to pursue her interests in storytelling and art by creating her own books.

 

The replacement was...

After college Susan King founded a publishing company, however, she eventually reduced her role in the firm to pursue her interests in storytelling and art by creating her own books.

 

Your selection rendered it a run-on sentence.  I do not know the other answers.  I am guessing this is correct...

After college Susan King founded a publishing company.  However, she eventually reduced her role in the firm to pursue her interests in storytelling and art by creating her own books.

 

I would also substitute reduced to modified.  But I doubt if that is an option.