【4月25日语法题目】

belinda_cao

1.Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.
(A) of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that
(B) of their sales a year earlier having been as bad as because
(C) of their sales a year earlier being as bad as because
(D) their sales a year earlier had been so bad as because
(E) their sales of a year earlier were as bad as that


2. Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthal s appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could out in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the Paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.
(A) appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
(B) appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,
(D) appeared as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,
(E) appeared to have been equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,


3. More and more in recent years, cities are stressing the arts as a means to greater economic development and investing millions of dollars in cultural activities, despite strained municipal budgets and fading federal support.
(A) to greater economic development and investing
(B) to greater development economically and investing
(C) of greater economic development and invest
(D) of greater development economically and invest
(E) for greater economic development and the investment of

The idiom as a means to correctly communicates that  stressing the arts is a method for achieving greater economic development. The idiom as a means of would incorrectly suggest that stressing the arts  is a kind of greater economic development. The adjective economic is needed to modify the noun development, and investing must be parallel to stressing.

4.Unlike the original National Museum of Science and Technology in Italy, where the models are encased in glass or operated only by staff members, the Virtual Leonardo Project, an online version of the museum, encourages visitors to "touch" each exhibit, which thereby activates the animated functions of the piece.
(A) exhibit, which thereby activates
(B) exhibit, in turn an activation of
(C) exhibit, and it will activate
(D) exhibit and thereby activate
(E) exhibit which, as a result, activates

The relative pronoun which requires an antecedent，and there is none provided in this sentence .it makes more sense to make the visitors the agents responsible for the action of both the verbs -touch and activate.


5. His studies of ice-polished rocks in his Alpine homeland, far outside the range of present-day glaciers, led Louis Agassiz in 1837 to propose the concept of an age in which great ice sheets had existed in now currently temperate areas.
(A) in which great ice sheets had existed in now currently temperate areas
(B) in which great ice sheets existed in what are now temperate areas
(C) when great ice sheets existed where there were areas now temperate
(D) when great ice sheets had existed in current temperate areas
(E) when great ice sheets existed in areas now that are temperate

In which or when can be used interchangeably in this sentence.  The verb form here should be the simple past existed tather than the past perfect had exisited .
Now currently is redundant because both adverbs express the same idea