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Help needed to improve SC from 60% accuracy to above 90%

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Help needed to improve SC from 60% accuracy to above 90%

by catty2004 » Sat Apr 28, 2012 3:43 pm
My accuracy rate when answering OG SC is about 60% (~21/47 wrong). I have 1 week until my exam, can experts or someone please please help me analyze what else I can do?

I read MGMAT SC and SC Grail twice and made a small heap of index cards of all the key fundamentals. Then this is how i approach a problem:

1) I read the original sentence very quickly to grasp the meaning and to get an idea of what the "correct" one could be

2) I read horizontally all the answer choices and do the 3-2 split, group similar ones and then read vertically to decide which is better. Usually I get down to two.

3) For the ones that I do answer correctly, I catch almost 90% of all the errors why something is wrong or right.

4) I realized that i miss most in order of Parallelism, Idioms, and Tense

5) I do OG12 questions in batch of 47, 47, and 46. After each, I analyze every questions for why something is right and something is wrong using this forum. For concepts I haven't fully grasp, i have an error log that tracks each concept along with the corresponding question.

Could someone please shed some light on how else I can improve quickly, especially time is of essence (I'm also week on Quant and RC) tears..........
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by theperegrine » Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:31 pm
Hi. SC can be the easiest and the fastest to answer, if you get the right notch.
May be you should try studying chunks of questions on each concept, instead of counting the no. of questions. That way, you get a better hang of the concept.
And two, try the vertical scan first and once you have cut down the choices, give a horizontal read.
Three, keep reviewing the notes of the error log.

Hope that helps. Good luck!
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by lunarpower » Sun May 06, 2012 3:23 pm
i received a message about this thread.

a couple of comments:
catty2004 wrote:I read MGMAT SC and SC Grail twice and made a small heap of index cards of all the key fundamentals.
be sure that you can make your own examples for each individual concept.

don't try to mix all the concepts together into a giant problem, the way the actual SC problems do -- that's too hard, for anyone except professional writers -- but, for each individual concept, you should be able to make your own (simple) sentences that are correct and incorrect.
1) I read the original sentence very quickly to grasp the meaning and to get an idea of what the "correct" one could be
what is "the correct one"?

if you are saying that you get the intended meaning in mind, then, good.
if you are saying that you actually try to formulate the correct version of the sentence itself -- as in, you actually try to "fix" the sentence in your head -- then, bad.
2) I read horizontally all the answer choices and do the 3-2 split, group similar ones and then read vertically to decide which is better. Usually I get down to two.
well, it doesn't matter whether it's "3-2" or "2-3" or "1-1-3" or whatever. the point is just to notice differences in the choices, whereupon you should use those differences to make decisions.
all this three/two/two/three nonsense seems to be overcomplicating the issue. if there's a difference, then try to use it; if there isn't, ignore.
for instance, if you see a modifier being moved around, don't worry about two/three/whatever. just ask yourself, "what is that supposed to modify?"
if you see a parallel structure, don't worry about two/three/whatever. just check to see (a) what's supposed to be parallel in the first place, and (b) whether those things are, in fact, parallel.
etc.
4) I realized that i miss most in order of Parallelism, Idioms, and Tense
parallelism is a super-major topic.
idioms and verb tenses are both minor topics.

there's no way this is a complete list of the things with which you have trouble. if this were actually the whole list, then you would be rather strong overall in SC.
5) I do OG12 questions in batch of 47, 47, and 46. After each, I analyze every questions for why something is right and something is wrong using this forum. For concepts I haven't fully grasp, i have an error log that tracks each concept along with the corresponding question.
so ... um, yeah, this is the problem. it appears that you actually expect to retain everything from 47 different problems at the same time!

here's a question for you: what's the maximum number of concepts that the human mind can (effectively) improve at once?
...
...
answer:
ONE

if you are trying to go over 47 problems at the same time (why would you do that to yourself? actually a serious question -- i'm very curious), your mind will have no chance of retaining any continuous lessons from what you learn. the best you could possibly hope for, in that scenario, would be to retain a few random bits and pieces here and there.

you need to concentrate on one major concept at a time.
go to the archive here, and check out the video entitled "A New Way to Study Sentence Correction":
https://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm
then try that out on the problems.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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