What’s This Mean? When to Use Common Sense on Sentence Correction
I totally understand why the test writers want to test meaning on SC after all, business communication hinges more on meaning than anything else. Nobodys going to care if you mess up which preposition you use in an idiom not unless it alters the meaning. But there are some times when it seems as though we need to make a judgment call with respect to meaning: when can we use common sense to know what the sentence should mean?
Give yourself approximately 1 minute 20 seconds to try this GMATPrep question. Warning: I was given this problem while taking one of the free GMATPrep tests. If youre still saving those, then you might want to put this article aside and save it until after youve seen this problem yourself on the test.
* As a result of a supernova explosion, every human being on Earth was bombarded on February 23, 1987, by about 100 billion neutrinos; fortunately, neutrinos are harmless elementary particles that are produced in nuclear reactions and that interact very weakly with matter.(A) neutrinos are harmless elementary particles that are produced in nuclear reactions and that
(B) neutrinos, which are harmless, are elementary particles produced in nuclear reactions and which(C) neutrinos are harmless elementary particles produced in nuclear reactions and which
(D) these harmless elementary particles are produced in nuclear reactions, and neutrinos
(E) these elementary particles, harmless products of nuclear reactions, are neutrinos that
Before I start reading any SC, I take a first glance at the whole problem. In particular, I look for anything that sticks out in two places:
(1) The underline. How long or short is it? Are there a ton of commas, or unusual punctuation marks, such as a semi-colon? Does the underline start with a really obvious clue word (such as and)?
(2) The answer choices. Compare them vertically (quickly, not word by word). Do they start similarly or are the openings fairly different? Does it seem like big chunks of the sentence are moving around or changing among the answers?
These clues give me an idea of what might be going on and also whether I want to deviate from my normal process for SC. Normally, I read the original sentence all the way through to the period and work from there. If the answers are really short, though, then maybe Ill look through the answers more carefully first before I read the original sentence.
For this problem, there is a semi-colon but it isnt underlined. Now I know that the first half of the sentence will provide important context, but the question is centered in the second half. Other than that, theres not much to be gleaned from a quick glance at the original.
The answer choices, though, show something important: there are significant differences right at the beginning. Answers A and C start with neutrinos are, while answer B says neutrinos, which. Somethings going on with modifiers and possibly sentence structure. Answers D and E really flip things aroundthey dont even start with the word neutrinosreinforcing the idea that one or more of the Big 4 will be tested: Structure, Meaning, Modifiers, and Parallelism.
I havent even started reading yet, but I already have an idea of what might be important. (Note: the First Glance should take only about 5 seconds of your time, once youve trained yourself.)
Okay, ready to go? Did you notice anything about the original sentence? What sounded funny or seemed wrong?
I didnt notice anything myself, so there are one of two possibilities: A is the right answer or I just missed whatevers going on. In other words, anything is still possible. :)
What to do when you dont notice anything wrong with the original? Read answer B and compare the two; this will hopefully give you a starting point. If not, try one more time with answer E. At that point, if you still have nothing, pick your favorite letter and move on.
Okay, lets read B. Hmm. Answer A had two that clauses: that are produced and that interact. Theyre parallel, which is good because the word and is a parallelism marker. In answer B, they use which instead but not for the same two things. Here, weve got which are harmless and which interact.
Just at that surface level alone, the two are parallel, but it seems like interact should really be parallel with produced: both produced and interact are modifiers following the verb.
Theres an even bigger issue with B, though, thats completely indisputable. The meaning is illogical.
Notice the word right before the underline starts: fortunately. Why is this word there? Whats its purpose?
If you want to be a grammar geek, then fortunately is an adverb; it modifies something other than a noun. You dont have to get that precise though. You can also just say, Its there to convey a certain meaning. Fortunately, something happened or something is true that means its not a big deal that we were all bombarded by neutrinos.
Why isnt it a big deal? According to answer B: fortunately, neutrinos are elementary particles. Hmm. I dont know about you, but I have no idea whether elementary particles are good or bad or neutral. I do know what the word harmless means, thoughand if I was bombarded by a bunch of neutrinos, Id feel pretty happy to find out that theyre harmless.
Right now, you might be thinking: but answer B did say that they were harmless! Youre right, it did but in a modifier (which are harmless). Because fortunately is placed at the beginning of the sentence, it needs to be talking about the main clause (neutrinos are elementary particles). If we wanted it to pair with harmless, wed have to say neutrinos, which fortunately are harmless, are elementary particles
So B is wrong. Do any others make this same mistakehave the wrong meaning? Yes! Both D and E:
(D) these particles are produced in nuclear reactions(E) these elementary particles are neutrinos that interact
Again, in both cases, fortunately must be modifying the main verb / action. As such, the sentences are no longer saying that fortunately the neutrinos are harmless.
Answers B, D, and E can all be eliminated using common sense: it makes sense to match fortunately with harmless. The other variations dont make sense.
Now were down to A and C. Lets go back to our previous examination with respect to the parallelism around the word and.
(A) neutrinos are particles that X and that Y(C) neutrinos are particles produced in X and which Y?
or maybe: neutrinos are particles X and which Y?
Im not even sure how answer C is supposed to be read from a parallelism perspective. Ambiguity is bad, so eliminate C. Answer A is parallel, though, and its the correct answer.
There are some other potential ways to narrow down the answers, but the real key here is going to be the meaning issue, particular for answers D and E.
The correct answer is A.
Key Takeaways for Meaning
(1) You can actually use common sense to some extent. Be careful not to make too many judgment calls, though. In this case, its clearly fortunate for something to be harmless. Nobodys going to argue that it isnt.
(2) Note that answer B can be eliminated for the parallelism reason or for the meaning reason. Why did I go for meaning first? Its actually easier to see the meaning issue in answer B than in answers D or E. If I hadnt picked it up there, I might not have gotten it from D or E, and then I'd have been stuck.
(3) Train yourself to look for meaning! The only reason I picked up the issue so early (in answer B) is because Ive specifically trained myself to think about meaning and common sense while Im checking the answers. One very useful way to do that is to train yourself to look for the sentence core: the subject and verb pairs. Strip things down to that level, as I did in the article above, and itll be easier (though still not easy!) to spot meaning issues.
* GMATPrep questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.