To The Moon Again

From Twitter:

Pick the best answers:

1. __ the rocket, the SLS* will take Americans to the moon next time.
2. __ selecting crews, NASA will have a male/female landing team this time.

a. about
b. concerning
c. regarding
e. in terms of
f. with
g. as for
h. in the case of

Answers:
1. d. as for
2. e. in terms of

Explanation:
Number 1. First the bad answers:
a., About works in conversation but is not the best literate answer. It is a casual beginning–not lending the proper sophistication to the subject–but again, it is an “okay” basic preposition for the phrase.
b., Concerning also works, but … well, but nothing. It is fine, but it lends a feeling of awkwardness and perhaps too much formality; it also sounds like there is a problem. What we are really looking for is a neutral preposition to introduce the rocket.
f., With is too informal and sound as if we have already mentioned the type of rocket.
h., In the case of also sounds too specific, like with, meaning it sounds like we have spoken of the rocket type already.

The best answer is g., as for, because it is like about, but lends a feeling of uncertainty, until we get to the certainty… of the type of rocket that has been chosen.
But the best reason is that… though we can use it for selecting crews–a process– in this case it is better to be paired with a single noun (rocket); so we use as for, more than in terms of for single things or people.

Number 2. e. In terms of is the best answer for ‘selecting crews’ because ‘terms’ suggests separate ideas or procedures, and a selection process is about that kind of thing–procedures, especially with a partitive (the ‘of’ portion), suggesting parts (in this case of a process).