OG92

92. Never before had taxpayers confronted so many

changes at once as they had in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

(A)         so many changes at once as they had in

(B)         at once as many changes as

(C)         at once as many changes that there were with

(D)         as many changes at once as they confronted in

(E)          so many changes at once that confronted them in

Choice D is the best answer, stating grammatically and clearly that, with the 1986 Tax Reform Act, taxpayers confronted more simultaneous changes than ever before. （有两个动作时，一定要注意哪个先，哪个后，这里before先，1986年后）In choice A, the past perfect had [confronted] illogically places the 1986 events in the same time frame as Never before had...; a simple past tense is needed to present the 1986 events as following the earlier ones. （两个都用过去完成时，说明时间相同，没法说明动作的先后关系）Choices B and C awkwardly place at once between confronted and its direct object, changes. （状语的位置放在谓宾之音，不过要注意不能单凭这点判断，一定要结合其它语法点来判断）Furthermore, B illogically states that the Act itself was many changes, when the point is rather that it presented many changes, （产生歧义，不合逻辑）and as many... that is an unidiomatic comparison. Choice E, too, presents an unidiomatic comparison with so many... that.

肯定用as many as .否定用so many as

这句是否定句 为何用as many as

谢谢

http://forum.chasedream.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=23&ID=20987

以下是引用caterpillar在2004-6-19 4:00:00的发言：

as...as....用于肯定和否定均可。

so...as...只能用于否定。

我當然同意諸位的看法，as much as 肯定否定通用

so much as 則僅用於否定

但我想補充一點，剛看了之前的討論，我覺得 og92的never不能算否定句

勉強只能算是有否定句意的肯定句

所以還是選用as many as為佳

thank u , concong /agk99

Now i can exactly distinguish between as many as and so many as. But , as for negative sentence , when i resort to the grammer book by zhang zhengban , I found that the sentence containing never, hardly is also called negative sentence.

So i am not sure whether the explanation from XDF is exact or misleading.