GMAT - Verbal Flashcards
What are the 7 most common Sentence Correction errors?
(Random order)
1. Verbs
a) Subject-verb agreement
b) Verb tense
2) Pronouns
a) Pronoun reference
b) Pronoun number
3) Misplaced modifiers
4) Parallelism
5) Idiomatic expressions
6) False comparisons
7) Quantity
How can you quickly eliminate Sentence Correction answer choice?
Find an obvious error in one answer choice and eliminate all answers containing this error.
This way you will not have to deal with these answer choices anymore, as you can be sure they are incorrect.
What are examples of common Subject-Verb agreement errors?
1) Modifying phrases or clauses between the subject and the verb: “Leo, like most babies, drink lots of milk.” (should be drinks).
2) Placing the verb before the subject in the sentence: “Drinks lots of milk does Leo, like most babies.” (The verb error here is “Leo does drinks milk”; if it read “Drink lots of milk does Leo,” it could be grammatically correct although stylistically ugly.)
3) Subject joined by either . . . or or neither . . . nor; although there are two nouns named, the true subject is either or neither, both of which require a singular verb: “Neither Leo nor the twins drink much milk” (should be drinks).
4) Collective nouns such as audience, council, group, majority, or series. Generally speaking, the number of a verb with a collective noun as its subject depends on the sense of the sentence, but on the GMAT this type of noun is usually treated as a singular noun. ACT also frequently uses singular collective pronouns: each, everyone, everybody, nobody. Example: “Each of the babies drink lots of milk” (should be drinks).
What is a general rule of Verb Tense?
For most questions, all of the verbs in the sentence should be in the same tense: past with past, present with present, and future with future.
If a sentence has two different sentences, then read the sentence carefully, and make sure the chronology makes sense.
What is a misplaced modifier?
A modifiers is a phrase that modifies the subject of another phrase.
It shall generally be placed right next to the subject it is modifying, e.g. (modifier underlined):
Incorrect: Running on all four legs with startling speed, Sylvia quickly photographed the fleeing chimpanzee. (the modifier is placed next to Sylvia, and therefore, it will sounds like she is the one running).
Correct: Sylvia quickly photographed the fleeing chimpanzee, running on all four legs with startling speed. (the subject ‘chimpanzee’ is placed next to the modifier).
What are the four most common misplaced modifiers?
1. A participial phrase (this means a phrase with an –ing word), such as
a)Running on all fours, Sylvia quickly photographed the fleeing chimpanzee.
2) A participial phrase introduced by a preposition
a)Upon returning to the mountain lake, the ice-cold water chilled Sylvia to the bone. (Sylvia is much more likely than the water to be returning to the mountain lake.)
3) Adjectives
a) Wet and cold, the fire of the camp had never looked so inviting to Sylvia. (It is Sylvia who is wet and cold, not the fire.)
4) Adjectival phrases
a) A photojournalist with an excellent international reputation, Sylvia’s photographs of wildlife always bring in top-dollar commissions. (Sylvia is the respected photojournalist, not her photographs.)
How do you identify a misplaced modifier?
Whenever you see a dependent clause (i.e. a clause that could not be a complete sentence on its own) set off by commas, identify which noun in the sentence it appears to modify.
E.g. Running on all four legs with startling speed, Sylvia quickly photographed the fleeing chimpanzee.
‘Running on all fours’ is a dependent clause - it is not a complete sentence on its own.
Now, identify what it seems to modify → clearly the chimpanzee and not Sylvia. Hence, it should be placed next to chimpanzee and not Sylvia.
Correct: Sylvia quickly photographed the fleeing chimpanzee, running on all four legs with startling speed.
What is the principle of parallelism?
The principle of parallelism is that if a sentence presents multiple related items or phrases, then each of those items or phrases should be presented in parallel grammatical structures.
Be on the lookout for (1) any kind of lists, and (2) any two-part sentence.
Example: Harold, a fervent environmentalist, is angry about the loss of wetlands, the decrease in biodiversity, and the destroying of the rainforest.
This sentence lists items where the first two (loss and decrease) are nouns, but the third (destroying) is a gerund. The parallel form would therefore be destruction.
What is parallelism in a two-part sentence?
Where the grammatical construction of the first half create and expectation that the second half will have a similar form, e.g.:
Incorrect: To say that Harold is a dedicated father is giving credit where credit is due.
Correct: To say that Harold is a dedicated father is to give credit where credit is due.
The first part is ‘to’ ´infinitive, which creates and expectation that the second part will also be like that.
What are the most common idiomatic expressions?
What are false comparisons?
When you incorrectly compare two things that are not comparable
Incorrect: The tomatoes in this bin are bigger than the other bin
Correct: The tomatoes in this bin are bigger than those in the other bin
The error is that in the incorrect sentence, tomatoes are compared to the size of the other bin - not the size of the tomatoes in the other bin.
What can you falsely compare with nouns and actions?
When you are comparing an action with a noun, e.g.:
Incorrect: After observing the race, we can all agree that greyhounds run faster than bulldogs.
Correct: After observing the race, we can all agree that greyhounds run faster than bulldogs run.
The error is that an action (to run) is compared to a noun (bulldog).
An action should be compared to an action (greyhounds run vs. bulldogs run) - it is also alright to compare greyhound run faster than do bulldogs (as long as it is action vs. action).
If you want to compare nouns, the equivalent will be to compare that greyhounds are faster than bulldogs
What is a general rule of false comparisons?
‘like’ can compare noun or noun phrases (X is like Y), while ‘as’ can compare clauses, i.e. phrases containing verbs (X is to Y as Y is to Z).
What is the difference between the quantities for ‘better’ and ‘best’?
Better is for two items (Adam is better than Jonas)
Best is for more than two items (Of all the five different flavours I think orange is the best flavor)
What is the difference between the quantities for ‘between’ and ‘among’?
Between is for two items (Adam shares the cakes between him and Jonas)
Among is for more than two items (The candies were distributed among all the kids)
What is the difference between the quantities for ‘less’ and ‘least’?
Less is for two items (The blue can contains less liquid than the green can)
Least is for more than two items (The orange can contains the least liquid of all the five different cans)
What is the difference between the quantities for ‘more’ and ‘most’?
More is for two items (The blue can contains more liquid than the green can)
Most is for more than two items (The orange can contains the most liquid of all the five different cans)
What is the difference between counting for ‘fewer’ and ‘less’?
Fewer is for countable items (Mother gave me less soup than she gave Madeleine)
Less is for non-countable items (Mother gave me fewer biscuits than she gave Madeleine)
What is the difference between counting for ‘many’ and ‘much’?
Many is for countable items (The can contains many candies)
Much is for non-countable items (The jar contains much jam)
What is the difference between counting for ‘number’ and ‘amount’?
Many is for countable items (The mother gave Madeleine a greater number of biscuits)
Much is for non-countable items (The mother gave Madeleine a larger amount of soup)
What are the different words for comparing two items and more than two items?
What are the different words for countable and noncountable items?
What are typical indication of errors in Sentence Correction?
- Any answer that includes ‘being’
- Unwieldy verb constructions
a. having been [verb]-ed
b. will have been [verb]-ing - Passive verb forms when active verb would work just as well
- Verbs ending in -ing when there are simpler choices
What is a participle?
A word formed from a verb (e.g. going, gone, being, been ) and used as an adjective (e.g. working woman, burnt toast ) or a noun (e.g. good breeding ). In English participles are also used to make compound verb forms (e.g. is going, has been ).
What should you do whenever you see an ‘and’ in Sentence Correction?
Look for parallelism errors!!!
It can both appear when there are 2 items, or a list of 3 items or more.
What should you be aware of if you see a ‘…, and …’ sentence?
If you see comma + conjunction (e.g. ‘and’, ‘but’) then look for sentence structure errors:
- Two clauses separated by a comma + a conjunction must both be able to stand on their own as sentences
- If at least one part is a fragment, it means the whole sentence is a fragment
How do you look for pronoun agreement errors?
If you see answer choices switching between singular and plural, then look for the answer choices that them it consistent
- Plural noun + plural noun
- Singular noun + singular noun
E.g. (underlines is part you can replace): Keeping them cool, the Holstein cow is producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each year
So in this case, you have the fixed part mentioning the cows as ‘them’, so you should probably find a solution that keeps mentioning the cows as plural, e.g.:
Correct: Keeping them cool, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each year
What should you do if you see the word ‘which’?
If you see the word ‘which’, look for modifier errors.
- ‘which’ must refer to the closest noun
