[Video] Q17: No change or adopting or raising or rearing

Explanation for Question 17 From the Writing Section on the 2017 April Sat

17 asks about the appropriate word choice for a particular situation. 2 The sentence reads the ponds, 3 that form as a result of dams, retain nutrient rich sediment, 4 fostering a variety of plant life and multiplying food sources such as plankton. 5 So we want to know what makes the most sense. The meaning of this 6 word in context is to kind of encourage or promote the variety 7 of plant life, enabled them to survive. 8 So we want to know a word that kind of matches up with that 9 meaning, but also really fits into this context about, 10 um, helping along plant life. 11 So in this case, um, our no change option fostering actually 12 works really well. It would make sense to say that we foster plant life 13 foster is a good way of describing how we, 14 um, the ponds that result from these dams, 15 um, enable the plant life to survive and kind of enable 16 it to thrive. 17 So choice a is correct. 18 Um, our other answer choices just don't really make as much sense in this 19 context. Um, remember that our subject here is the ponds that form 20 from dams. So ponds are not an animal, 21 not a human they're inanimate. So, 22 um, we want to make sure that we're using a verb that makes sense 23 with that. Um, these are the answer choices adopting, 24 raising, and rearing are all, maybe something we would kind of think of in 25 terms of an animal doing or a human doing, 26 but it doesn't really make much sense to say that a pond would do 27 those things. So fostering stands out as the best answer choice here.