Which is the best choice?

xymUID: 158527

There is one question on English phrasal verbs, I wonder if you could suggest the best answer to me. Thank you!
News reports say peace talks between the two countries ________ with no agreement reached.
A. have broken down   B. have beoken up

fiyaUID: 134210

A

QQsugarUID: 136441

I thought the right answer might be A

xymUID: 158527

But there are such sentences on the Internet:http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2003/03/03/story90368.asp... Talks break up until tomorrow. 7:25:52 PM Talks on the future of the peace process
have broken up for the night at Hillsborough Castle. Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair have
been chairing the talks, which have been described as the most important ...
RTÉ News: Multi-party talks break up at Stormont
... Multi-party talks break up at Stormont. (19:16) The multi-party talks in Stormont have broken up after
two hours of discussions with no breakthrough agreed on a way to restore devolved government in the North. ... Ahern
sets February target for North talks. 21 2002. Peace process needs gear change - Cowen. ...
BBC News | NORTHERN IRELAND | Party's accord talks break up
... Friday, 19 January, 2001, 06:33 GMT Party's accord talks break up. UDP leader Gary McMichael:
"Fundamentally and irreversibly" pro-agreement. Talks between leading members of a fringe loyalist
party on its stance on the peace process have broke up without reaching a conclusion. ...

xymUID: 158527

Israel-Palestine talks in Paris break up acrimoniously Five more ...
... Israel-Palestine talks in Paris break up acrimoniously. Five more Palestinians killed by Israeli
troops. ... These forces now tear up his picture. ... Progress in the peace talks was entirely dependent upon
accommodating them, despite their opposition to a deal with Arafat and the Palestinians. ...
Korean Talks Break Up as Agreement Unravels
Korean Talks Break Up as Agreement Unravels. ... But there was no change in the North's attitude, so we
have nothing to tell them any more." The talks were the latest effort by the Koreas, still technically
at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended without a formal peace treaty, to implement ...

jieyuhua111UID: 42870

You can search it on Webster dictionary ,it would give you the exact meaning .
B is right!

fiyaUID: 134210

News reports say peace talks between the two countries have broken up with no agreement reached..=News reports say peace talks between the two countries have broken down.

xymUID: 158527

This is question 31 of the 2003 NMET.
In the examination room, one might reason as follows:
Alternatives (b) and (c) can be dismissed out of hand.  The meanings of alternatives (a) and (d) can be expressed thus:
break down – to collapse without achieving the desired objective (a perfectly standard English expression).
break up – to disperse, to go into recess (for a time or even an undetermined period) (another perfectly standard modern English expression).
Inserting them into the target sentence, we are then faced with:
a.    …. peace talks have broken down with no agreement reached.
d.    …. peace talks have broken up with no agreement reached.
Hence, we are faced with two possibilities - and we are aware that the examiners insist on the choice of the best of the four possibilities within the target sentence.  Second best is hardly sufficient in such circumstances since the National Examination is very much a case of “to Bei Da or not to Bei Da”.
In (a), we are faced with the clear-enough statement that the peace talks had broken down but with the quite redundant information, “with no agreement reached”.  Of course agreement has not been reached.  That is stated in the verb “to break down”.  The sentence, “News reports say …”, contains a redundant expression, a tautology, that would be sufficiently obvious to make the sentence a candidate for inclusion in a list of sentences to be corrected in an English-speaking country’s matriculation English examination.
In (d), we have a statement that informs us that talks whose aim is the brokering of a peace agreement have broken up, i.e. gone into recess for a time, and that, at the time of the recess, no agreement had been reached.  In this sentence, we are not informed of the reason for the recess – nor do we need to be.  The key information is that, at the time of the recess, an agreement had not been reached.  Maybe the recess has been caused by disagreement about the terms of a treaty.  Equally, the talks may have gone into recess for supper and efforts will be made to broker an agreement after a good meal.
The candidate must now make his/her fatal choice.  Only one of the four alternatives will be awarded that final mark necessary to gain that long-dreamed-of place at Bei Da.  Which to choose - (a) with its clear meaning of meeting break down but with the ugliness of tautology or (d) a statement with an equally clear but different meaning without the unfortunate tautology of (a)?
Naturally, the alert candidate will choose (d) and will congratulate him/herself on having avoided the examiner’s trick of luring the unsuspecting into the stylistic error of tautology by his inclusion of a phrase whose meaning is already included in the term “to break down”.
The alert candidate would be aware that absolutely no argument could be raised against the correctness of alternative (d) whereas a very strong objection can be raised to the choice of (a).  The fact that low-grade or careless journalists might write in such a manner is hardly an argument sufficiently strong to give the choice of (a) a greater claim to the title, “Only correct answer”, than (d).
In retrospect:
One might wonder at the motives of the examiner for including “with no agreement reached” in a sentence in which he desired the choice of (a).  Some who have commented on this matter see it as an act of kindness on the part of the examiner in his effort to lead the reasonably alert student into the choice of (a).  But why, then, include “to break up” in alternative (d)?  If alternative (d) had been “to break through”, it would easily enough have been discarded along with (b) and (c) and exception would not then have been taken to the “correctly” completed sentence, worthy though it may be of a B grade journalist.
The examiner would have done better to reword his sentence by using a “because” construction, as in the example quoted in A Practical English Grammar and Combined Exercises (A. J. Thomson & A. V. Martinet, 1979), “The negotiations broke down because neither side would compromise”.  He might have written:
News reports say that, because the delegates refused absolutely to agree on key elements of a proposed peace agreement, peace talks between the two countries ______.
If Question 31 had been worded in this way, alternative (a) would have been the one and only correct choice.
Maybe one might argue that Question 31 contains two “correct” answers.  But a question containing two correct answers should hardly make its appearance in the National English Examination.  I believe that Question 31 is an unsatisfactory question, which is unfortunate since I also believe that the 2003 National University Entrance English Examination paper is one of the admirable papers that I have seen.  With the exception of Question 31, I thought it was a most elegant test instrument.

qangelUID: 158804

My Engish senser tells me B is right.

GGumpUID: 119501

Since there are only two choices....it should be "which is the better one" ba. ^_^

Yet,I don't know the answer...sigh....I have to look up the dictionary first.

Oh...er ...I find that the example sentence the Longman used to support the meaning of "break down" when it is expressed as "[I] to come to an unsuccessful end", is that "The peace talks broke down without any agreement being reached."
So,,,,,,I will select A. ^_^

GGumpUID: 119501

So,,,,what makes sense in this board?

GGumpUID: 119501

What is water as you see?