[Video] Q16: No change or focusing on writing historical epics was what he wanted to do instead. or writing historical epics was what he wanted to focus on writing instead or he wanted to focus on writing historical epics instead.

Explanation for Question 16 From the Writing Section on the 2018 May Sat

For question number 16. 2 Um, we are taking a look at this underlined portion here. 3 The sentence now reads, believing the home stories to be low brow work, 4 instead of focused on writing historical ethics was what he wanted. 5 So the issue here is that this sentence is constructed very passively. 6 A focus was what he wanted. 7 Um, so that makes the subject, the focus on writing historical epics. 8 We want our subject here to be the author that's who we're really talking 9 about here. So we want the sentence to be something like the author wanted 10 rather than a focus was what he wanted. 11 Um, so writing in that sort of more active style is really more engaging 12 to the reader and it's generally best practice. 13 So looking at our answer choices, 14 we've eliminated the no change option for being too passive choice B focusing 15 on writing historical epics was what he wanted to do. 16 Instead. This sort of has exactly the same problem with choice a, 17 the no change. Um, it's just rewriting that choice lightly. 18 Again, it's still really passive focusing was what he wanted to do rather than 19 he wanted to focus on something else. 20 Um, choice C again, writing historical epics was what he wanted to focus on 21 instead, still not really coming right out the gate. 22 The author wanted to, um, 23 and writing as actively as possible tries D as our best answer. 24 He wanted to focus on writing historical ethics instead he wanted his front and 25 center. The subject is very clearly the author here rather than the focus 26 that he desired. Um, so answer choice D is the most active and it 27 is the most correct answer choice for number 16.