Sentence Correction SC : It tests your mastery of both grammar and meaning as it applies to conventional written English. Grammar: Much of the language that you hear in everyday speech actually violates one rule of another.
The GMAT tests your ability to distinguish between good and bad grammar, even when bad grammar seems natural. Meaning: Confusing writing is bad writing. If you have to read a sentence more than once to figure out what the author is saying or if the sentence lends itself to multiple interpretations — it is not a good idea. Every sentence must have a subject and a verb. Subject is the noun that performs the action expressed by the verb. A modifier describes or provides extra information about something else in the sentence.
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Compare the remaining answer choices vertically, looking for differences, or splits. If you know how to tackle a particular split, do so! In the Pereira example, you might note that the answers split on that vs. What is at the heart of that difference?
A The two words are pronouns, but one is singular and one is plural. The pronoun is z intended to refer back to the plural word designs, so the singular that is incorrect.
The only difference is at the end: remember vs. Pereira first gained recognition for one thing, but the author postulates that future generations are going to remember him for something else. The future tense, will remember, fits that meaning. Sometimes you may feel-and rightly so-that all the answers, includ- ing the correct one, aren't very good. Correct GMAT Sentence Correction answers never break strict grammatical rules, but these answers can sound formal or even awkward.
Ex- pect that, at times, a correct answer won't sound or feel very good to you. How can you possibly move that quickly and still get the right answer? In general, try to spend at least 40 seconds on any SC question; if you work more quickly than that, you are more likely to make careless mistakes. Speed is never an advantage if it causes you to miss problems that you know how to answer. If you need that long to answer, chances are good that you're missing something or have already made a mistake.
Don't cross the two-minute mark on SC; instead, guess from among the remaining answers and move on. Using This Book Complete the chapters in the order in which they are presented, because later material sometimes builds on material presented earlier in the book. Every chapter or two, return to the How to Get Better section and do some drills to hone your skills on the various steps of the process.
When answering practice questions, if you are completely confident that an answer is wrong even though you can't articulate exactly why, go ahead and cross that answer off.
When you are reviewing your work afterwards, check to make sure that you were correct. If so, you may be able to trust your "ear" for that type of error in future. If not, however, then you will need to dive into the grammar or meaning issues, possibly in- cluding learning some technical grammar terminology and rules, so that you can retrain your ear for future problems.
The first two chapters of this guide cover strategy and overall lessons for SC, while the sub- sequent chapters teach specific grammar and meaning concepts that you need to know for the GMAT.
Beginning with Chapter 2, you will have problem sets on which to test your skills. Try about half of the problems included in the end-of-chapter set; save the rest for future study. After you complete each problem, check the answer. Whenever necessary, return to the lessons in the chapter to solidify your understanding before trying the next problem. You also have online access to problem set lists that refer to questions found in the three Official Guide books published by the test makers.
If you have access to these other books, then you can use our problem set lists in your practice. Is the underline very Very long underlines often signal issues with sentence struc- long?
Very short? Very short underlines less than five words may lead you to compare the answers in full before reading the original sen- tence. What is the first un- The nature of the first underlined word or the word just be- derlined word?
What fore can give you a clue about one of the issues tested in the is the word right be- sentence. For example, if the word has is the first underlined fore? What are the differ- There will always be at least one difference at the beginning of ences among the first the answers as well as one at the end. It's easy to glance word or two of each down the first word or two of each answer, so do so. If the answer?
Now, you can actively look for the relevant subject when you read the original sentence. After you 've studied SC for a few weeks and tried some problems from any of the three Offi- cial Guide books published by the test makers, you can add a first glance drill to your study regimen.
Find some lower-numbered easier problems that you've already tried in the past. Afterwards, look at the full problem and remind yourself what it tests.
Did your first glance unearth any of those issues? Examine the first underlined word, the one just before, and the first words of each choice more carefully, and ask yourself whether there are any clues, or markers, you missed.
If so, write them down on a flash card. Read the Sentence for Meaning Your default strategy is to read the entire original sentence, all the way to the period, noting possible grammar or meaning issues along the way. The non-underlined portion contains very valuable information that can help you decide how to proceed. Once you're done, de- cide which issue to tackle first.
If you think you've spotted an error in the original, verify, then cross off answer A as well as any other answers that repeat that same error. In that case, go ahead and eliminate choice A immediately and glance through the remaining an- swers to eliminate any with that same error. At that point, though, return to the original sentence and finish reading it, keeping an eye out for any additional errors that you could use to eliminate other answers. If you don't, you'll be much more likely to fall into a trap.
To drill yourself on meaning, pull out your Official Guide again and look at some problems you 've done in the past. Read only the original sentence not the answers , then look away and try to articulate aloud, in your own words, what the sentence is trying to say.
You don't need to limit your rephrase to a single sentence. Do actually talk out loud. You'll be able to hear the conviction in your own voice when you know what the sentence is trying to say and you'll also know if you don 't really know what the sentence means. In the latter case, examine the problem again. Either you just didn't understand it or there was actually a meaning issue in that sentence. Which is it? Check the solution: does it say that there is a meaning problem?
If so, then great-no wonder you had trouble rephrasing it. If not, then the explanation itself may help you to understand what the sentence is trying to say. Find a Starting Point Most of the time, you'll have to find multiple starting points on SC problems-one of the an- noying things about this problem type. There are two primary ways to find a starting point: read the original sentence and compare answers.
To drill the latter skill, open up your Official Guide again and look at some problems you have done before. This time, do NOT read the original sentence. Instead, cover it up. Compare the answers and, based on the splits that you spot, try to articulate all of the things that the problem is testing.
You usually won't be able to pick an answer, but you can often tell what is being tested even when you can't tell how to answer. For example, you might see a verb switching back and forth between singular and plural. If the subject isn't underlined, then you can't know which verb form is required because you haven't read the sentence!
When you're done, read the underlined portion of the sentence or check the solution. What clues did you miss? Con- sider making flash cards for those clues. Eliminate All Incorrect Choices One of the most annoying moments in SC occurs when you've narrowed the answers down to two When this happens to you, don't waste time going back and forth repeatedly, agonizing over the answers.
Pick one of the two and move on. Afterward, review the problem and learn how to make that choice. Add the following analy- sis to your overall review of SC problems: 1. Why is the right answer right? Why are each of the four wrong answers wrong? What is the trap that would lead someone to cross out the correct answer?
What is the trap that would lead someone to pick a wrong answer? When you learn how you or someone would fall into the trap of thinking that some wrong answer looks or sounds or feels better than the right one, you'll be a lot less likely to fall into that same trap yourself in future. Don't just glance over those examples. Rose or increase, not both. Grammar: Does the sentence adhere to the rules of standard written English? Meaning: Does the sentence clearly indicate the author's intended meaning?
These principles are equally important and actually overlap quite a bit. Certain grammar rules exist in order to convey a logical and unambiguous meaning. You'lllearn some of these principles in this chapter and others as you work your way through this guide. Grammar: Much of the language that you hear in everyday speech actually violates one rule or another. The GMAT tests your ability to distinguish between good and bad grammar, even when the bad grammar seems natural.
Consider this example: Does everyone have their book? You likely hear similar sentences all the time, but the question actually violates the rules of standard written English. It should read: Does everyone have his or her book? Meaning: Confusing writing is bad writing. If you have to read a sentence more than once to figure out what the author is saying-or if the sentence lends itself to multiple interpreta- tions-it is not a good sentence.
What about the often-cited "principle" of concision? It is true that the GMAT does not like to waste words. However, this is a preference, not a rule. Test-takers focus far too quickly and broadly on concision.
As a result, the GMAT often makes the right answer less concise than an attractive wrong answer. Furthermore, Official Guide OG explanations often label a sentence wordy or awkward without additional expla- nation; typically, these sentences have a meaning problem or an idiom error. In general, fo- cus your efforts on grammar and meaning; concision is unlikely to help much. Each chapter will present a major grammatical topic in depth: sentence structure, modifiers, parallelism, comparisons, pronouns, verbs, and idioms.
You will learn both the overarching principles of each grammatical topic and the nitty-gritty details that will help you differenti- ate correct grammar from poor grammar.
You will also complete practice exercises designed to hone your skills in that topic. For your reference, a glossary of common grammatical terms appears in Appendix B of this book. Do not be overly concerned with the names of the grammatical terms, as the GMAT will never require you to know what the rules are called. The terms are simply necessary to explain various grammatical rules.
Focus on understanding and applying these rules, not on memorizing terms. The Five Grammar Terms You Need to Know We try to keep fancy terms to a minimum in this book, but there's no way to discuss gram- mar without using at least a few actual grammar terms.
Here are the five terms you abso- lutely need to know: 1. Clause A clause is a set of words that contains a subject and a working verb. This is a clause: She applied for the job. She did. What did she do? She applied. She is the subject because she is the one performing the action. Applied is the working verb because it describes what the subject did. For any sentence, you could ask, "Who or what did what?
Together, the subject and working verb create a complete, stand-alone sentence, or an inde- pendent clause. Independent clauses have, at the very least, a subject and a verb. Every cor- rect sentence must have at least one independent clause.
A dependent clause also contains a verb but cannot stand alone as a sentence. Without an independent clause, you have a sentence fragment. This is a fragment: Although she didn't have much work experience. You'lllearn more about clauses in Chapter 3, "Sentence Structure," of this guide. Modifier A modifier provides additional information in a sentence, beyond the core subject and verb. The simplest example is an adjective. For example, in the phrase the happy child, the word happy, an adjective, is a modifier.
Modifiers can also be more complex: The large dog, which has black fur, is a Labrador. If you remove it from the sentence, the core of the sentence still makes sense: The large dog is a Labrador. Compare that to this sentence: The job that she started last week is much harder than her previous job. In this sentence, that she started last week is called an essential modifier.
Why is this one essential? Look what happens when you remove it from the sentence: The job is much harder than her previous job. The job? What job? If you haven't already specified a particular job, then the meaning of the sentence is murky. This is the hallmark of an essential modifier: the modifier is necessary in order to understand the meaning of the sentence.
You can find a full discussion in Chapter 4, "Modifiers," of this guide. Sentence Core The core of a sentence consists of any independent clauses along with some essential modi- fiers. This is the bare minimum needed in order to have a coherent sentence. Any nonessential modifiers are stripped out of the sentence core. See more on sentence core in Chapter 4 of this guide. Conjunction Conjunctions are words that help to stick parts of sentences together.
Here's an example: He worked hard, and a raise was his reward. Coordinating conjunctions, such as and, can glue two independent clauses together. Both he worked hard and a raise was his reward are independent clauses.
Modifiers can be connected to independent clauses by subordinating conjunctions. The word although is a subordinating conjunction. Other examples include because, while, though, unless, before, after, and if. You'lllearn more about conjunctions in Chapters 3 and 4 of this guide. Marker This one is not an official grammar term, but it's important.
A marker is a flag or clue that a certain kind of issue is being tested. On occasion, this book will talk about certain kinds of markers. For example, the word unlike is a comparison marker; when you see unlike, you should think about comparisons. Let's say you read an explanation and think, "Hmm, I didn't know that that word was a marker for that kind of grammar issue.
Keep a list, make flash cards, record it however you prefer-but do record and study the fact that this particular marker should have made you think about a certain grammar. That's all to start. Yes, technically, we did sneak more than five terms into that list. The terms are all related, though.
If you run across other unfamiliar terms, you can look them up in the glossary at the end of this guide. Meaning: A Closer Look A clear sentence is transparent-the author's intended meaning shines through. On the GMAT, however, either the original sentence or its variations may muddy the waters. One of your tasks is to choose the answer choice that conveys a logical and clear meaning. Consider this sentence: Tomorrow, she bought some milk.
Ei- ther she bought the milk in the past or she will buy the milk in the future. You know the sen- tence is wrong because the meaning is illogical. If the meaning of the original sentence is clear, start looking for grammar issues.
If, however, the original sentence is confusing, you will need to discern the author's intent. Fortunately, this intent will not be buried too deeply. After all, the correct sentence has to be one of the five choices. Thus, the GMAT tends to make use of "small" errors in meaning that can be easy to overlook.
Most instances of meaning errors fall into one of three major categories: 1. Choose your words 2. Place your words 3. Match your words Choose Your Words Did the author pick the right words out of the dictionary? If a word has more than one meaning, is the author using that word correctly, to indicate the right meaning? The GMAT rarely tests you on pure vocabulary, but very occasionally, it tries to pull a trick on you by switching a particular word and its cousin.
The second sentence, which is shorter and punchier, may look preferable. Unfortunately, it is wrong! Economical means "thrifty, efficient. But the ap- propriate phrase is economic considerations-that is, monetary considerations. Joss in decline in value mandate command vs. These helping verbs express various Levels of certainty, obligation, and reality. Simply by swapping these verbs, the GMAT can completely change the meaning of the sentence. Notice that the second sentence cannot be correct.
The word should means "moral obligation"-something that a court cannot impose. On the other hand, the use of must in the first sentence indicates a Legally binding obligation imposed upon the plaintiff.
Thus, you should go with must, whether the original sentence used must or not. For more on helping verbs see Chapter 8, "Verbs" of the guide. Place Your Words Beware of words that move from one position to another. The placement of a single word can alter the meaning of a sentence. For example: ALL the children are covered in mud. The children are ALL covered in mud.
In these sentences, changing the placement of all shifts the intent from how many children all of them to how the children are covered in mud all over. In the first sentence, only indicates that the council alone votes on Thursdays as opposed to the board, perhaps, which can vote any other day, but not Thursdays. In the second sen- tence, only indicates that the council does not vote on any day but Thursday.
If a word changes its position in the answer choices, consider whether the change has an im- pact on the meaning of the sentence.
Look out especially for short words such as only and all that quantify nouns or otherwise restrict meaning. At a broader level, pay attention to overall word order. All the words in a sentence could be well-chosen, but the sentence could still be awkward or ambiguous. Did the city officials receive the right to make Legal petitions? Or did someone else receive the right to make petitions to the officials? Match Your Words Sentences generally contain pairs of words or phrases that must match.
As you saw in an example earlier in this chapter, a verb must match the time frame of the overall sentence. These matches also have grammatical implications. What's wrong with the following com- parison? Unlike Alaska, where the winter is quite cold, the temperature in Florida rarely goes below freezing.
Though you know that the author is trying to say that Alaska and Florida are dissimilar, technically, the sentence says that Alaska and the temperature in Florida are dissimilar. It's illogical to compare a state to the temperature in another state. A similar matching principle holds for other grammatical connections e.
Future chapters will explore each type of connection in turn; for now, remember to test the meaning of any potential connection. Connected words must always make sense together.
Avoid Redundancy Another aspect of meaning is redundancy. Each word in the correct choice must be neces- sary to the meaning of the sentence. Redundancy goes beyond mere concision -redundancy confuses the meaning, causing the reader to ask: "Did I read that right? Since rose and increase both imply growth, only one is needed. Since sum and total convey the same meaning, only one is needed. Consider this example: Pay attention to expressions of time.
This does not mean that you can never repeat time expressions in a sentence; just be sure that you are doing so for a meaningful reason. Also pay attention to transition words, such as contrast words. What is wrong with the sen- tence below? Although she studied night and day for three months, yet she did not do well on her exam. Each sen- tence is followed by a boldface sample answer choice that may change the meaning. Select A if the original version is correct, B if the boldface version is correct, C if neither is cor- rect, and D if both are correct.
If you select A , explain what is wrong with the boldface version. If you select B , explain how the boldface version corrects the original version.
If you select C , explain why both versions are incorrect. Some questions refer to rules and distinctions that will be discussed in upcoming chapters. No matter how much work it mav. Even though it requires much work 2. The driver took the P-eOP-le for a ride who had been waiting. Rising costs to raw materials mav. She is the most dedicated gardener on the block, watering the more than SO P-lants in her v. Hector remembers San Francisco as it was when he left 10 v. Students at Carver High School are encouraged to pursue only those extracurricular ac- tivities from which stems success in college aQP-lications.
Look for issues outlined in this chapter. It is possible that the earthquake may have caused the building's collapse. Though canals have experienced a severe decline in barge traffic over the past several decades, yet with the rise in fuel costs, "shipping" by actual ships may once again be- come an important means of transporting goods within the country.
A : The original sentence does not say that getting an MBA requires a lot of work. The ex- pression no matter how much work it may require simply says that the amount of work whether large or small does not matter. The revised version eliminates the word may, so that the new sentence does say that an MBA requires a lot of work.
B : In the original sentence, the modifier who had been waiting does not clearly modify the people. It appears, illogically, to modify the closer noun the ride. The boldface version moves who had been waiting next to the people, thus making clear that it is the people who had been waiting.
B : The boldface version makes several changes to the meaning of the original sentence. Costs to X are what X has to pay, whereas costs of X are how much somebody must pay to buy X. The latter meaning makes much more sense here, because raw materials are being paid for, not doing the paying.
Raise is a verb that always takes a direct object: The Fed subject raised the interest rate object in March. Rise is used only in contexts where there is no direct object: Interest rates subject rose in March. In this sentence, prices are a direct object, so the verb must be raise. Farther refers only to distance I can throw a javelin farther than you can whereas further refers to degree of something other than dis- tance We need further time and money for this project.
D : The original version contains the phrase the more than 50 plants. Here the words more than modify the number The sentence therefore means that she waters her plants, of which there are more than In the boldface version, the phrase changes to watering more than the 50 plants. Here the words more than are separated from the number 50, and therefore do not modify that number.
The new version says that she waters something more than i. Both versions potentially make sense though one implies she is a very dedicated gardener , so either version could be correct.
There- vised version says that he did NOT leave San Francisco 10 years ago: the expression as though is used to discuss things that are untrue or did not happen You behave as though you were richer than Bill Gates! Another important change in meaning comes because the revised version takes out the words it i. San Francisco wasl and therefore does not refer directly to the state of affairs 1 in San Francisco 10 years ago. D : Both versions are correct! There is no change in meaning. Eliminate redundancy.
For the same reason you do not need both after and subsequently. The earthquake may have caused the building's collapse. Canals have experienced a severe decline in barge traffic over the past several decades, yet with the rise in fuel costs, "shipping" by actual ships may once again be- come an important means of transporting goods within the country. No Though at the beginning of the sentence. Using both Though and yet is redundant. Subject Verb The subject, the dog, is performing the action of running.
Moreover, the subject and the verb must agree in number: in this case, both dog and runs are singular. How does the GMAT make things more complicated?
Subject and Verb Must Both Exist If a sentence is missing the subject or the verb, the sentence is a fragment; in other words, it is not a complete sentence! On the GMAT, the correct answer must be a complete sentence, or independent clause. Sitting certainly Looks Like a verb. It is not, however, a working verb, a verb that can run a sentence by itself.
In this sentence, the word watched is a working verb. In this sentence, the words was sitting make up the full verb form. The word sitting is called a present participle and you'LL see more of these "-ing" words throughout this book.
For now, just remember that an -ing word by itself is never a working verb: The cat sitting by the stairs is not a sentence.
Because and which are connecting words. They add extra information to a sentence, but they are not sentences by themselves. They're examples of modifiers, which you will Learn about in the next chapter. The correct answer must contain at Least one independent clause; if an answer choice does not, eliminate it! Qg runs out of the house. QQgs run out of the house. You already know this; you would never write the dog run out or the dogs runs out. The GMAT, therefore, has to try to obscure these errors so that some people will fall into a trap.
The GMAT might hide the subject, so that you are unsure whether the subject is sin- gular or plural. If you do not know the number of the subject, then you will not be able to select the verb form that agrees with it. What is the subject, discovery or new medicines?
It makes as much sense to say the discovery was vital as it does to say the new medicines were vital. In this case, The discovery A noun in a prepositional phrase can- not be the subject of the sentence.
Are these sentences both correct? Lin and Guy drive to work. Lin, as well as Guy, drive to work every day. The first sentence is a correct example of a compound subject: Lin and Guy together func- tion as the subject of the sentence. Compound subjects are always plural because at least two nouns function as the subject. A compound subject must be connected by the word and, but the second sentence uses the modifier as well as Guy. Only Lin qualifies as the subject, so the sentence is incorrect.
For example: Righr: Un drove to work and 5ald hello to hrs co-worker. Verb That last sentence contains both a compound subject and a compound verb. If the writer inserts enough distance between the two portions of a compound subject or verb, it could be easy to make a mistake. Read on to learn how the GMAT does this. Eliminate the Middlemen and Skip the Warmup The most common way to hide a subject is to insert words between the subject and the verb; we call these words the middlemen.
If you learn to ignore these words when looking for a subject, you 'll be much less likely to pick the wrong noun as the subject.
Further, the GMAT often puts a significant number of words in front of the subject you want. In these cases, you have to ignore the warmup that comes before the subject of the sentence.
There are a few common types of middlemen and warmups. PreP-ositional Phrases A prepositional phrase is a group of words headed by a preposition.
For example: of mice for milk Q. A list of common prepositions is included in Appendix B. Prepositions are followed by nouns or pronouns, which complete the phrase. Prepositional phrases modify or describe other parts of the sentence. A noun in a prepositional phrase will never be the main subject of the sentence. Q Spiddle ARE gorgeous. DeP-endent Clauses Dependent clauses, which begin with connecting words such as who or because, cannot stand alone as sentences.
Nor are they part of the main subject or main verb; rather, they are always attached to independent clauses. Look at the first sentence in this paragraph: can you find the dependent clause? Hint: examine the commas. Dependent: which begin with connecting words such as who or because Independent: Dependent clauses cannot stand alone as sentences.
If a dependent clause is stripped out of a sentence, what remains is still a complete sen- tence. Try another example: Because she studied hard, she earned a good score on the test. What is the dependent clause? Dependent: because she studied hard Independent: She earned a good score on the test.
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