VR - Sentence Correction

Question 1

Sentence Correction format

Answer 1

• SC questions make up slightly more than 1/3 of verbal questions
• Each SC has 2 basic parts:
  1. A sentence with an underlined portion
  2. 5 different options for replacing the underlined portion. The first option is always identical to the original underlined portion
• It is all about English grammar
• If you can consistently tell right from wrong, you don’t have to know why!

Question 2

The importance of splits in a sentence correction

Answer 2

• A split = a systematic difference between answer choice
• Splits make you more efficient: by grouping answers, you can quickly eliminate in groups and avoid rereading the large chunks in each answer that are the same
• In order to spot splits easier, please do the following:
  1. While reading the sentence, note anything that seems suspicious
  (If you found something that stood out, vertically scan the region of the answer choices where it should appear to see if you can find a split based on what stood out)
  2. Check the beginning and the end of the answer choices for splits
  (There is always at least one difference at the beginning of the answer and one at the end)
  3. Not down to one answer yet? Scan vertically, looking for differences across all of the remaining answers
• If you find a split that you don’t know how to handle, ignore it and look for something else

Question 3

Parallelism

Answer 3

• In general, you don’t need to perform a detailed formal analysis on parallel structures, instead, you only have to decide which structure is most parallel
• If one structure is clearly more parallel than others, then that structure is right and the others structures are wrong. Do not over analyze!
• Emphasis on parallelism b/c it is grammatically complex, but conceptually straight forward. Need to be able to see the “big picture” of these relationships

Question 4

Play the odds on certain splits to guess the correct answer

Answer 4

• “such as” is more likely to appear in the correct answer than “like”
• “rather than” is more likely to appear in the correct answer than “instead of”

Question 5

(Subject - verb disagreement)
When I see

“Neither of …”

Answer 5

Think about neither (one) of them… verb to follow has to be singular!