Help! ( comma infinitive?)

[DaCastle]

For more than a decade, the young woman had systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash, to solve two problems at once.

 

a) decade

b) systematically

c) experimented

d) ,to solve

 

WHICH ONE has to be corrected?

(The correct choice is d) (--> ,solving), but I don't understand why, cause, I think, "to solve~" in this sentence can be interpreted to give the motivation for her experimenting with ways...)

 

 

[Erin]

Hey there DaCastle! Good news! I agree with you!!! Therefore, we can say that this question is BAD :(, is NOT a real TOEFL question, and should be pretty much ignored!

 

Furthermore, this question has another problem--the verb tense ("had experimented") is WRONG.

 

There are a couple of different rewrites possible for this question. Looky here:

 

[*] For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash, and to solve two problems at once.

[*]For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash, solving two problems at once.[*]For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash to solve two problems at once.

 

Pay close attention to the deleted word ("had") and the deleted puncuation (the comma).

 

Hope that helps!

 

Please post further questions here.

 

Erin

 

Please search this newsgroup for FAQs & search TestMagic.com from the bottom of every page.

 

TestMagic.com

San Francisco, CA USA

[dokiente]

For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash, "solving" two problems at once.

 

For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash "to solve" two problems at once.

 

Erin, please explain function of "solving" and "to solve". They are the same meaning as ",and to solve".

Thanks a lot.

 

[atnoon]

Originally posted by dokiente

 

For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash, "solving" two problems at once.

 

For more than a decade, the young woman systematically experimented with ways to generate more power from trash "to solve" two problems at once.

 

Erin, please explain function of "solving" and "to solve". They are the same meaning as ",and to solve".

Thanks a lot.

 

 

All are the same meaning!!! There are 3 grammatical correct ways to re-write this question sentence.

 

At Noon:)