SC RULES Flashcards
Plural or singular?
ethnic groups / families dynasties / sports team names
plural
Plural or singular?
Country Names (ie “The Netherlands”)
singular
Plural or singular?
“X and Y” subject
Plural
When to use WHICH vs THAT
“Which” is non-essential / “that” is essential = to understanding the meaning of the sentence
“as . . .as or worse than.”
**always need the TWO “as” for this construction.
Which is correct completion of the verb phrase?
“doing this” vs. “doing it” vs. “doing so”
“doing so” is correct. Can never follow “doing” with a pronoun.
ex: “I enjoy swimming at night, but doing so is dangerous” is preferable to “I enjoy swimming at night, but doing it is dangerous.”
“due to” or “because of” ?
His failure was _______ ___ his laziness.
His failure was due to his laziness.
“Due to” modifies a noun.
“due to” or “because of”?
He failed _______ ___ his laziness
He failed because of his laziness.
“Because of” modifies a verb or verb phrase
“greater than” and “less than” can only be used when?
when two things are being compared.
NEED: X is greater/less ….THAN Y
“is expected to / will”
OR
“is expected … should”
Correct: “is expected to / will”
Wrong: “is expected … should”
“X is to Y… ______ Z is to A”
“X is to Y… WHAT Z is to A”
What does this modify:
“….that…”
a preceding noun.
ex: “….books that continue to be read today”
Used for essential information.
What does this modify:
” …. , who….”
A preceding person.
ex: “… Jacob, who napped”
What does this modify:
“… , which…”
A preceding thing.
“…the school, which was recently opened.”
NON essential information.
The movement or disappearance of a time marker signals?
a change in the meaning of the sentence.
*pay attention to when things are happening (now vs. some other time)
Long underlined SC signals what?
issues with sentence structure, meaning, modifiers, or parallelism
Short underlined SC signals to do what?
compare the answers in full before reading the original sentence
= probably NOT testing meaning!
“and” signals?
Parallelism: “X and Y” OR “X, Y, and Z”
look if there is a comma before the “and” for if signals only 2 elements in the list.
3 main categories being tested for MEANING issues:
1- words don’t properly match in meaning (“yesterday she will buy milk”)
2- redundant words (“she loves movies, and in addition is a big fan of rom coms”)
3- words in wrong place (“she tended to the gardens daily vs. she tended to the daily gardens”)
When I see these markers of time, I look for redundancy / meaning issues in SC:
Previously, formerly, in the past, before now
Now, currently, presently, at present
Annual, each year, a year
If I see short words (ie ONLY or ALL) moving around a lot in answer choices, it signals:
A meaning issue in SC.
Ex: ALL the kids are covered in mud.
vs. The kids are ALL covered in mud.
“Had” and “If” at the beginning of a sentence signal what?
A hypothetical - so verb tenses needs to match!
Singular or plural verb to follow?
“neither X nor Y….”
ALWAYS singular (if linking two singular nouns, which the test will most likely do)
Does “each” need a singular or plural verb?
“each” is a SINGULAR subject, so needs a singular matching verb.
Ex: Each of the team members has a new jersey.
