It was agreed?

[Strawberry girl]

Test No. incompl/inter-28 "The Hare and the Tortoise", question 4

It was ......... that the tortoise should choose the course and also the end of the race.

(a) consented
(b) permitted
(c) allowed
(d) agreed

Test No. incompl/inter-28 "The Hare and the Tortoise", answer 4

It was agreed that the tortoise should choose the course and also the end of the race.

Correct answer: (d) agreed

Your answer was: incorrect
It was allowed that the tortoise should choose the course and also the end of the race.
_________________________

I think that the tortoise can choose the course must be allowed by judge, not agreed by judge.
So I chose the answer "allowed".
Strawberry girl

[Alan]

Hi Strawberry,

The expression it was allowed is not really used as a passive impersonal construction and in this sentence permission is not mentioned. The two of them agreed on this and so the acceptable expression is: It was agreed.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Communicating with you?

[Strawberry girl]

Hi,Alan
Sorry,I can't understand your reply that "The expression it was allowed is not really used as a passive impersonal construction" .You mean that "it was allowed" is a fixed colloacation and it doesn't have practical meaning.Am I right?

[Alan]

Hi Strawberry,

What I meant was that you can use allowed in a passive sense as for example: Smoking was not allowed in the dining area but it was allowed in the waiting room. It is not really used as an impersonal construction followed by a noun clause in the same way as you would say: It was agreed that ../It was stated that ... It was believed that ... and so on. You would have to write round the matter and say: Permission was given for them to ...or you could make the verb passive and use a personal pronoun as in: They were allowed to ...

Hope this is clearer.

Alan
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story A Rhapsody of Words

[Dunghq]

Sorry, I typed wrong "diferrence". It must be "difference".

[Yankee]

.
Did you also have a question, dunghq?
.

[Dunghq]

Please tell me the difference between "agree" and "consent".
Is it right if I use " It is consented" for this case ?
Thank you

[Alan]

Hi dunghq,

'Agree' and 'consent' both have the same sense of expressing willingness to do something or accept that it will take pace. The difference is in the use of both words. Of the two, 'consent' is more formal and doesn't usually stand alone but is used with the preposition 'to'. You would therefore say: I agree but I consent to that. That is probably why a construction like: It was consented doesn't work because the preposition 'to' is missing and in order to accommodate it, you would have to create an awkward construction.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Words, words, words...