Question+17

//Yet unlike other nations, American schools are financed at the local rather than the federal level.//
 * 17. Which of the following versions of the sentence in lines 4-6, reproduced below, is clearest?**

Question 17 is a grammatical question which, in actuality, does not require much knowledge of the rest of the essay; it is purely mechanical. In order to answer this question, the student must be able to first identify what the question is asking: this question is asking which option //increases clarity// of the original sample sentence. The student must also have knowledge of basic grammar rules and guidelines in order to assess which option is the most correct.

(A) Change "Yet" to "Nevertheless" //Nevertheless unlike other nations, American schools are financed at the local rather than the federal level.// Answer A is a wrong answer. "Nevertheless" is an adverb which, when used at the start of a sentence, nearly always has a comma after it. Without the comma, it is choppy and does not contribute to the flow of the sentence. In addition, using "nevertheless" rather than "yet" does not increase the clarity of this sentence.

(B) Add "schools in" after "unlike" //Yet unlike schools in other nations, American schools are financed at the local rather than the federal level.// Answer B is the correct answer. Without the addition of "schools in", this sentence can appear unclear and misleading; as it is, it appears to be comparing American schools to other nations, when in reality it is referring to schools //in// these other nations in comparison to American schools. Therefore, by adding "schools in", the sentence's parallel becomes more clear, thus answering the question.

(C) Add "however" after "schools" //Yet unlike other nations, American schools however are financed at the local rather than the federal level.// Answer C is a wrong answer. Because the contradiction word "yet" is already present at the beginning of this sentence, the addition of another contradiction word, "however", only adds confusion to this sentence. In addition, when "however" is used in the middle of a sentence, it is nearly always enclosed in commas.

(D) Change "are financed" to "receive income" //Yet unlike other nations, American schools receive income at the local rather than the federal level.// Answer C is the distractor option. While it is still grammatically correct, it does not actually answer the question. The question asks for an answer that will //improve the clarity// of the original sentence. So while answer C is still grammatically correct, it does not increase the clarity of the sentence by any means, and therefore is not the correct answer.

(E) Add "from" after "than" //Yet unlike other nations,// // American schools are financed at the local rather than from the federal level. // Answer E is a wrong answer. The sentence's parallel is already clear. The word "at" is in a parallel with the two phrases - if written out completely, it would read, "financed at the local rather than at the federal level". The "at" is, however, omitted from the second item of the list for precision's sake, and becomes implied. If the "from" is added, the clarity of this sentence does not increase, and therefore answer E is wrong.