This is the latest in a series of “How To Analyze” articles that began with the general “How To Analyze A Practice Problem” article (click on the link to read the original article). This week, we’re going to analyze a specific Sentence Correction question. The GMATPrep® problem we’re using this week is one that we’ve already discussed how to solve in a previous article; click here to read that article and try the problem first.

Here’s the GMATPrep® problem again; if you didn’t read the first article and try the problem already, then try this problem now (1 minute, 15 seconds):

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As discussed previously in this space, the authors of the GMAT have two primary goals when they write any GMAT question – they want you to have the potential to get the question wrong, and they also want to give you the opportunity to waste precious time as you arrive at your answer (so that you have the potential to get future questions wrong).  Cleverly, they have designed a style of Critical Reasoning question that is suited to serve both ends – the “Mimic the Reasoning” question.

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Tone is the feeling or emotion associated with a passage or a part of a passage. An author creates tone with the specific words he or she chooses to include. Adjectives and adverbs give authors a chance to express emotion because they are explicitly descriptive; much of an author’s tone is created in the way he or she describes things.

Sometimes an entire passage has a tone. Take this example:

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Last week, we covered the basic components of an Argument and how to identify them (Critical Reasoning for Beginners, Part 1: The Components of an Argument). Now let’s put the theory into practice and look at a simple Sample Argument.

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Don’t worry, this is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Knewton instructor Cole Entress lays it all out for you in this short lesson.
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“Because it sounds right!”

This refrain is often heard when a GMAT student is asked to explain why he or she has selected a specific answer.  At Kaplan, we disabuse students of the notion that sentence correction questions can be consistently solved simply by “sound.”  Instead, test takers need to look for specific grammatical errors.  Identifying most of these errors depends on the context in which they are used.  For example, if the subject of a sentence is singular, the verb must be singular as well.

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This week, we have another great article from Chris Ryan, Manhattan GMAT’s Director of Instructor and Product Development. Chris has some really interesting stuff for us this week on “layering” in Sentence Correction questions. Layering is a technique used by a test writer to make a question more difficult. Take it away, Chris!

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Perhaps the most frustrating of the three Verbal question types, Critical Reasoning (or Argument) questions present a difficult challenge for most testers. While they’re somewhat less involved than Reading Comprehension questions, they require a significant measure of language processing and reasoning. Often testers find the text of CR questions to be convoluted and confusing. Sometimes, the questions themselves can be phrased in ways that make the question tasks difficult to identify. However, as CR is roughly 30% of the Verbal section, these questions simply cannot be disregarded. Performing well on CR during questions 1-30 is essential to achieving one’s target Verbal score.

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We live in a quantitative society, which is a major reason why your GMAT score is so crucial– we like to support our decisions using numbers.  When someone tells you, however, that they “ran the numbers”, is that explanation adequate for acting on their research?  Every day we are showered by numbers that seem to support decisive action on our part – “save up to $100/month”; “95% fat free” – but those statistics, correct as they may be, might not actually mean that their purveyor’s conclusion – “buy this product” – is the best one for us.  To save up to $100/month, we will likely need to spend much more than that on nonessential purchases; that 95% fat free statistic is a clever way of saying that the product is 5% fat, and the potential exists that your body will convert much of the other 95% to fat pretty quickly, anyway.

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When confronting a sentence correction problem, one of the first error types for which test-takers (rightfully) search is an incorrect verb tense.  In order to identify the correct verb tense to use in a specific situation, students must be aware of the appropriate context of each tense.  This is especially important when one of the “perfect” tenses is in play.

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In recent weeks, we’ve been examining how to analyze specific questions using the system described in the original How To Analyze A Practice Problem article. We’re continuing the series this week with a look at an Inference question from a Reading Comprehension passage.

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An idiom is an expression that on a literal level may not make perfect sense, either grammatically or logically, but has become so thoroughly accepted that the misuse of this expression is a grammatical error.

The correct form of an idiom is determined by conventional usage rather than by rules of grammar. Therefore, the best way to deal with unfamiliar idioms is to memorize their correct form. The following list of common idioms is not exhaustive, but it is a good starting point.

Here is a list of common idioms:

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There’s so much to do as you prep for the GMAT….review math formulas, remind yourself of grammar rules from way back when, take practice tests, learn this whole new world of data sufficiency…there are endless tips on how to improve your score, and most people find the need to spend 2-3 months or so preparing.  In addition to the study-prep tips that are already top of mind, such as working through all of the practice problems in your test-prep books, there are other things that you can do during your preparation period that can indirectly help you improve your GMAT score, outside of your study time.  One of these is to READ as much as possible between now and Test Day.

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A few weeks ago, we covered the topic of Math in Critical Reasoning Questions (click on the link to read the article), brought to us by Chris Ryan, Manhattan GMAT’s Director of Instructor and Product Development (not to mention one of the people I admire most in the GMAT world). We’ve got another great installment from him this week, this time on the concept of causation in Critical Reasoning questions.

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As we’ve previously explained, the authors of the GMAT are much more mechanics than they are artists (though their questions are, in most cases, masterpieces) in that their job is to create a standardized test, and not a random assortment of challenging questions.  To be a successful assessment for the purpose of MBA admissions, each question needs to be unique on the surface, but almost identical to others in its underlying composition.

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