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TOEIC Reading 5 Exercisee 172

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Question: 
O:8:"stdClass":2:{s:8:"question";s:108:" ______ by the audience’s positive reaction to its music, the Mary Jones Band played well past midnight. ";s:7:"choices";a:4:{i:0;s:9:"delighted";i:1;s:11:"delightedly";i:2;s:10:"delightful";i:3;s:7:"delight";}}
Answer: 
a
TOEIC Reading 5 Category: 
content access: 
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answer explanation: 

<p> The correct answer is <strong>(A) delighted</strong>.</p>
<p style="">We can read this question sentence as:</p><p style="">"Because the Mary Jones Band was delighted by the audience’s positive reaction to its music, the Mary Jones Band played well past midnight."</p><p style="">This sentence is a complex sentence with a main clause and an adverbial clause. The adverbial clause is "Because the Mary Jones Band was delighted by the audience’s positive reaction to its music." The main clause is "the Mary Jones Band played well past midnight."</p><p style=""><font color="" face=""><span style="">An adverb clause is a dependent clause that provides information about when, where, why, to what extent, or under what condition the action in the main clause happened. It can be reduced to an adverbial phrase by removing the subject and the be-verb when they are not essential to the meaning of the sentence.</span></font><br></p><p style=""><strong>Original Adverb Clause:</strong>&nbsp;"Because the Mary Jones Band was delighted by the audience’s positive reaction to its music."</p><p style="">Here's a step-by-step breakdown:</p><ol style=""><li><p><strong>Identify the Subject and Verb in the Adverb Clause:</strong>&nbsp;The subject is "the Mary Jones Band" and the verb is "was delighted."</p></li><li><p><strong>Identify Redundancy:</strong>&nbsp;In the main clause, "the Mary Jones Band" is also the subject. So, when reducing the adverb clause, the subject "the Mary Jones Band" in the adverb clause is redundant and can be omitted.</p></li><li><p><strong>Change the Verb:</strong>&nbsp;The verb "was delighted" should be transformed into its past participle form "delighted" to create an adverbial phrase.</p></li><li><p><strong>Omit the Subordinating Conjunction:</strong>&nbsp;The subordinating conjunction "Because" is also often omitted when the adverb clause is reduced to a modifying phrase.</p></li><li><p><strong>Resulting Adverbial Phrase:</strong>&nbsp;"Delighted by the audience’s positive reaction to its music."</p></li></ol><p style="">Now, the sentence with the adverbial phrase reads: "Delighted by the audience’s positive reaction to its music, the Mary Jones Band played well past midnight." Therefore, (A) Delighted is the correct answer.</p>