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Question

Difficulty: HardIdiomatic Word Choice

For decades, the unsigned political pamphlet was attributed for a prominent senator, but recent analysis of the prose style suggests it was actually written by a local activist.

Which choice best fits the underlined portion of the sentence?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. attributed toAnswer
  3. C
    attributed with
  4. D
    attributed by

Answer

attributed to
The correct answer is 'attributed to' because the verb 'attribute' idiomatically pairs with the preposition 'to' when indicating authorship or source. In this context, the sentence states that the political pamphlet was believed to be written by the senator, making 'attributed to' the only idiomatically correct and logical choice.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical and contextual relationship in the sentence.
The sentence discusses a political pamphlet whose authorship was historically credited to a senator, but is now believed to have been written by an activist.
Understanding the context helps determine which preposition correctly links the verb 'attributed' to the noun 'senator'.
2
Recall the correct idiomatic preposition for expressing authorship credit.
The verb 'attribute' requires the preposition 'to' when linking a creation to its creator (e.g., 'attributed to a senator').
Idiomatic word choice requires using standard prepositional collocations recognized in formal English.
3
Evaluate the distractors against the context.
'Attributed for' and 'attributed with' are unidiomatic, while 'attributed by' suggests the senator performed the action of attributing, which is illogical here.
Eliminating grammatically or contextually incorrect prepositions ensures the most precise and idiomatic choice is selected.

Key Concept

Idiomatic Preposition Collocations
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Topics

Idiomatic Word Choice

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