Senior HS Mid term English Question -please help

My wife is a senior high school teacher. These tests are cooperatively designed by the Taiwanese English teachers. Unfortunately as they are Taiwanese and not native speakers there is violent disagreement on the possible answer.

I’m loosing some of my native English ability since I’ve been here for so long. Here are questions, please help.

I repaid him five times ______ the money I owed him.
a) the number of b) more than c) as many as d) as much as

Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew hot to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather

For Question 1 a and c are definitely out. But, b and d look good. For question 2, we feel that c is the best choice but the creator of the question insists that it is d.
Thanks for your help.

None of the choices for question 1 seems correct. However, it is possible that “number” has been confused with “amount”, in which case (a) looks like the right answer. (But why would you repay five times the amount you owed?)

If I were doing the test, I would choose (b) for question 2. Can’t see how it is (d).

[quote=“Taiwan_Student”]My wife is a senior high school teacher. These tests are cooperatively designed by the Taiwanese English teachers. Unfortunately as they are Taiwanese and not native speakers there is violent disagreement on the possible answer.

I’m losing some of my native English ability since I’ve been here for so long. Here are questions, please help.

I repaid him five times ______ the money I owed him.
a) the number of b) more than c) as many as d) as much as
[/quote]
Correct answer is “d”.
It can’t be “a” or “c” because “money” is not a count noun. It isn’t “b” because whatever follows “five times” has to be a set quantity, and “more than” isn’t a certain quantity. “as much as the money I owed him” is a definite amount of money, so it works here.

[quote]Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew hot to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather [/quote]
Correct answer is “b”. This is a cause-and-effect sentence pair. Since she started playing when she was very young, we would expect that she did know how to play at age five. “B” is the only answer that has that meaning. “C” is not ungrammatical but it’s just silly in terms of writing or speaking (though not unheard-of in Taiwanese compositions!) “D” would introduce a clause that gives information that goes against what was stated in the first sentence, and the first sentence would probably have been negative if “rather” were the correct answer. Something like “Sandy never played the piano when she was little. Rather, she took trumpet lessons.” Although I wouldn’t formulate it quite like that myself; I’d probably use “instead”. But “rather” is used to highlight a contrast between two things or ideas, and these two sentences do not show a contrast.

[quote=“ironlady”]Correct answer is “d”.
It can’t be “a” or “c” because “money” is not a count noun. It isn’t “b” because whatever follows “five times” has to be a set quantity, and “more than” isn’t a certain quantity. “as much as the money I owed him” is a definite amount of money, so it works here.[/quote]

I have to agree, but I can’t help thinking the question is not going to help students learn how to use “as much as” in real communication. It’s just designed to separate the super grammatically anal from the regular grammatically anal.

[quote=“Taiwan_Student”]

Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew how to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather

.[/quote]

Thank you for responding so quickly on this subject. Now, I’m having a little disagreement with my wife. You answer b, is the most logical but, I think I have a problem with the way the sentence was cast in the first place. I read detective novels, and science fiction. The use of “therefore” is usually cast as the sum of supportive data leading to a big conclusion, verdict or consequence.

"Timmy, you kicked the dog, were mean to you parents and threw rocks at the teacher. Therefore, I am grounding you for one week. "

starting to play piano when you are little doesn’t cause you to be able to play it at the age of five. These facts are more equal. I would have picked “By the way” having the image of a "B-movie’s 1950’s house wife/mother inserting more detail when bragging about her daughter in my head.

By the way… (i hope I’m using that correctly) Are there any free grammar quizzes or tests that we long term foreigner can use to keep our own grammar skills sharp. I could sure use some refreshers… Thanks again for the help.

I repaid him five times the money I owed him.

No need to put anything in the space, just say it like that.

For the second one, would you honestly ever say anything like that? Five IS little, for one thing. And ‘therefore’?? Yuk! Who uses that word in a context like that? I might use ‘so’ but it’s still an ugly Chinglish way of saying anything.

Edit: just saw your comment about therefore. I agree with you.

The correct answer to all these sort of questions is that Chinese people shouldn’t be creating English tests. I’ve been speaking the language fluently for decades, and teaching for quite a long time, and I’m a pedantic bastard, but I know that i’m not very good at this very skilled activity. Can’t they just buy a book of test questions, written by someone who knows what she’s doing?

On the positive side, at least the vocabulary needed to make sense of the questions is no more difficult than the stuff being tested. I’ve seen waaaay too many tests where teachers cram in these weird and wonderful words they found in an old dictionary, which completely eclipse the actual task they’re testing.

“The inebriated pedagogist was flummoxed by the effusive verbosity of _________ English teachers, and succumbed to a mindnumbing case of lockjaw in direct consequence.”
a. the b. an c. some d. it’s e. disembowelling

Tetanus, dude. Phrase your questions using vocabulary that your students will UNDERSTAND.

[quote]Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew hot[sic]how to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather

[/quote]

Iron Lady, I agree with you that “b” is the best answer but the sentence is weak without using already. In my opinion that sentence would be much better if it read like this, Therefore, she already knew how to play it by the age of five.

[quote]I repaid him five times the money I owed him.

No need to put anything in the space, just say it like that.[/quote]

Since when did Taiwanese teachers choose the sensible answer over the more verbose one?

None of the answers are correct if the intended meaning is ‘I repaid him five times the money I owed him’. Answering (b) would imply (imho) that the speaker repaid six times the original amount, and (d) just sounds plain clumsy; grammatically OK (?), but unconventional diction.

I’d also suggest none of the answers are correct for the second question, which looks to me like textbook Chinglish. I suspect the intended meaning is:

“Sandy started learning the piano when she was little, so she knew how to play it by the age of five”.

or even, since ‘five’ is still ‘little’ by anyone’s standards:

“Sandy started learning the piano when she was little; she knew how to play it by the age of five”.

Taiwanese people insist on using ‘therefore’ far more often than is decent, especially in situations where a native speaker would say ‘so’. At least using ‘by the age of five’ instead of ‘at the age of five’ makes ‘therefore’ technically acceptable, but I don’t know why! ‘At’ just doesn’t sound right.

Slightly OT, I am absolutely astounded that ‘professional’ teachers are not only coming up with this random nonsense for exam questions but arguing about it with native english speakers/teachers. What confuses me most, though, is that some students still manage to (apparently) score 100% even when the questions are wrong. So how does that happen, then?

That is simply they memorized the standard Taiwanese grammar book/books that is/are used in Taiwan.

The funny thing is that if a Taiwanese student lived abroad during elementary school and returned during high school he or she would not be able to score a perfect on the English part of the university entrance exam.

[quote=“steelersman”][quote]Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew hot[sic]how to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather

[/quote]

Iron Lady, I agree with you that “b” is the best answer but the sentence is weak without using already. In my opinion that sentence would be much better if it read like this, Therefore, she already knew how to play it by the age of five.[/quote]

Yeah, but we knew it was weak going in. It wasn’t written by a qualified writer (native speaker or not). If it doesn’t pass the educated native speaker test of naturalness, it isn’t native-like, IMO. But despite what others have been telling me lately in other threads, things just haven’t changed that much in Taiwan. The old arguments about grammaticality and native speakers not knowing their own language (as long as that language is English and not Chinese) persist.

If I point out problems with English materials/tests that I see at the public elementary school where I teach, the local English teachers will tell me that they agree the English I suggest is better, but they have to test on what’s in the book. Makes sense. So use a correct book? Can’t do that because the books were written by some famous Chinese English teacher. The school uses them because they are so good for helping local Chinese kids learn English.

OH! :ohreally:

BUT! They WILL come and ask me about something from time to time, and even take my advice about things that don’t come directly from the book. They NEVER argue against my opinions on grammar. So there’s that. I guess.

Half of my students (the smart ones unfortunately) would have written, “Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. Moreover, she knew hot to play it at the age of five.”

Moreover? Really? When was the last time you heard this word used?

I’m pretty sure it’s been taught by their Taiwanese teachers as the proper expression for the Chinese “er chie” (pardon my pinyin).

I seem to write “moreover” quite frequently, but maybe it’s because I’m translating from Chinese?

[quote]Sandy started learning the piano when she was little. _______, she knew hot to play it at the age of five.

a) Instead b) Therefore c) By the way d) Rather [/quote]
Correct answer is “b”. This is a cause-and-effect sentence pair. Since she started playing when she was very young, we would expect that she did know how to play at age five. “B” is the only answer that has that meaning. “C” is not ungrammatical but it’s just silly in terms of writing or speaking (though not unheard-of in Taiwanese compositions!)[/quote]

Agreed. “C” sounds like a strange “side note.”