Belajar structure TOEFL: Connector vs Preposition

Dalam soal structure & written expression TOEFL ITP, perbedaan penggunaan connector/conjunction dan preposition biasa diujikan. Ke duanya memang kadang memiliki makna mirip atau bahkan sama.

Contoh dalam kalimat:

Penggunaan because dan because of memiliki makna sama yaitu karena. Walau ke dua jenis kata ini memiliki makna yang sama, ke duanya memiliki cara pakai yang berbeda.

1. Because of the rain, I didn’t go to school.
2. Because it was raining, I didn’t go to school.
3. Because of it was raining, I didn’t go to school. (x)
4. Because the rain, I didn’t go to school. (x)

Because it merupakan connector, olehnya mesti ketemu dengan subject & verb (clause). Sementara, because of itu merupakan sebuah preposition, sehingga harus bertemu dengan noun, bukan clause.

Berikut 15 contoh soal TOEFL ITP terkait materi ini:

• Saint Elmo’s fire is a luminous blue discharge of electricity sometimes seen when a thunderstorm.
• While the twentieth century, the field of dentistry has developed branches that specialize in the treatment of individual dental problems.
• Charlotte Pekins Gilman was a leading intellectual in the women’s movement while its early decades in the United States.
• Humus is formed during soil microorganisms decompose animal and plant material into elements usable by plants.
• Some of the first aerial photographs were taken from a balloon while the Civil War in the United States.
• While infancy, the period from birth until the age of two, a child grows to approximately half of his or her adult height.
• While the process of photosynthesis in green plants, light energy is captured and used to convert water, carbon dioxide, and minerals into oxygen and organic compounds.

• Saturn takes almost 30 Earth years to make one trip around the Sun, during Jupiter takes about twelve Earth years to complete one solar revolution.
• Many species of birds that breed in temperate latitudes often show particular patterns of migration while the year.
• Bursae are fluid-filled sacs that form cushions between tendons and bones and protect them while movement.
• Because of it consists only of a relatively short strand of DNA protected by a shell of protein, a virus cannot eat or reproduce by itself.
• In addition to their usefulness as scavengers, birds are of enormous value to humans because of they eat insects and control the spread of weeds.
• Salmon spend most of their adult lives in salt water, despite they return to their freshwater birthplaces to spawn and die.
• Nuclear energy, despite its early promise as a source of electrical power, is still insignificant in compared with older and safer energy sources.
• Despite television is the dominant entertainment medium for United States households, Garrison Keillor’s Saturday night radio show of folk songs and stories is heard by millions of people.

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