[Grammar] CAE issues

[notvanityfair]

Hello, guys!

I'm preparing myself for the Cambridge Advanced English Exam, and I have two questions regarding one of the tasks.
It's from the trainer 'Advanced Practice Plus', Use of English Part 2, where you have to 'think of the word which best fits each gap'.

The sentence is: They argue that solving a puzzle yourself, (11) ... gamers had to in the old days, might have taken longer, but it was more satisfying.

I've chosen to write 'that' in 11 but the book says the correct answer is 'as (or like)'. I was trying hard to work it out, but failed. Can anybody explain why we cannot use 'that' here and must use 'as (or like)' instead?

The second question is from that text either.
The sentence is: Doing a search and downloading a solution MAKES me more likely to finish games (...).

I've chosen to write MAKE, as here we have two subjects, two gerunds - 'doing' and 'downloading' - thus having to use plural form of the verb. However, the book says the opposite. Would you be so kind to explain that to me, too? A bit bemused.

 

[Tarheel]

Hello, guys!

I'm preparing myself for the Cambridge Advanced English Exam, and I have two questions regarding one of the tasks.
It's from the trainer 'Advanced Practice Plus', Use of English Part 2, where you have to 'think of the word which best fits each gap'.

The sentence is: They argue that solving a puzzle yourself, (11) ... gamers had to in the old days, might have taken longer, but it was more satisfying.

I've chosen to write 'that' in 11 but the book says the correct answer is 'as (or like)'. I was trying hard to work it out, but failed. Can anybody explain why we cannot use 'that' here and must use 'as (or like)' instead?

The second question is from that text also. The sentence is: Doing a search and downloading a solution MAKES me more likely to finish games (...).

I've chosen to write MAKE, as here we have two subjects, two gerunds - 'doing' and 'downloading' - thus having to use plural form of the verb. However, the book says the opposite. Would you be so kind to explain that to me, too? A bit bemused.

The original is correct in both cases. In the second instance, I see "Doing a search and downloading a solution" as more or less one thing (or a combination of things).

Now you know!

 

[jutfrank]

You've asked two unrelated questions:

Q1: I rarely see the point in trying to explain why something is wrong. Suffice to say that your answer is ungrammatical and doesn't make sense. (I suppose you were trying to complete a relative clause.) Anyway, you'd be much better off focusing on the right answer. I assume that since you know what the correct answer is, you do understand what the sentence means, right?

Q2: The subject, though compound, is meant as singular, so makes agrees with that. Think of doing a search and downloading games as one thing (one strategy).

Please remember to post unrelated questions in separate threads in future. Thanks.