How to Do Any Sentence Correction Problem - Part 1
For the past six months, weve been developing a new process for Sentence Correction. Some beta students and classes have seen it, but this is the first time were debuting it publicly!
Read on and let us know what you think. The final details arent set in stone yet, so your comments could actually affect the outcome!
The 5 Steps for Sentence Correction
Ill go into more detail on all of these below.
- Take a First Glance
- Read the Sentence
- Find a Starting Point
- Eliminate Answers
- Repeat steps 3 and 4
As with any process, there are times when you will decide to deviate for some good reason. For most questions, though, youll follow this same basic process.
1. First Glance
When a new problem of any type first pops up on the screen, what do you do? Of course, you need to read the problembut thats actually your second step, not your first!
First, take a holistic glance at the entire screen: let your eyes go slightly out of focus (dont read!), look at about the middle of whatever text is on the screen, and take in 3 things:
- The problem type
Right now, you might be thinking: well of course, the first thing you would notice is the problem type. A colleague of mine recently put this to the test with a series of students. She put a quant problem in front of them and, after a few seconds, she suddenly covered it up. Then she asked Was that DS or PS?
Prepare to have your mind blown: most of the time, they didnt know! DS and PS are immediately and obviously different if youre looking for the clues at first glance. People are so stressed about starting to solve, though, that they myopically focus on the first word of the problem and are blind to the full picture right in front of them.
- The length of the whole sentence
- The length of the underline (or the length of the answers)
How does this help? If the answer choices are really short (around 5 words or fewer), then you might actually choose to read and compare them before you read the full sentence up above. If the underline / answers are very long, theres a good chance the question will test Structure, Meaning, Modifiers, or Parallelism.
You wont always spot a good clue during your First Glance, but most of the time you willespecially when you practice this skill!
2. Read the Sentence
Next, read the sentence as a complete sentence, not just a collection of potential grammar issues. Pay attention to the overall meaning that the sentence is trying to convey.
In addition, if your first glance gave you a clue, then think about that issue as you read. If you spot a new issue, but youre not sure what to do with it, keep reading the original sentence.
3. Find a Starting Point
4. Eliminate Answers
At some point, either youre going to spot something that you know is wrong or youre going to reach the end of the sentence.
If you spot something you know is wrong, then immediately cross off answer (A) on your scrap paper. Check that same issue (and only that issue!) in the remaining answer choices; eliminate any answers that repeat the error.
If you cant find a starting point in the original sentence, then start comparing the answer choices. Compare the first word of each answer choice, as well as the last word: do the differences give you an idea of what topic might be at issue?
If not, then compare answer (A) to answer (B); do the differences give you any clues?
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4
SC is a bit annoying in that your first starting point often wont allow you to cross off all four wrong answers. You usually have to find multiple starting points.
Once youve dealt with one issue, return either to the original sentence or to a comparison of the answer choices, wherever you left off.
Whenever you spot a difference that you know how to handle, address it, crossing off any other answers that repeat that error.
If you spot a difference that you dont know how to handle, then ignore iteven if its the last possible difference there! If you dont know it, you dont know it. Dont waste time staring at it.
At some point, either you will have one answer left or youll get stuck. Pick and move on!
What do you do when youre stuck?
This can happen at any stage of the game, even at the beginning. You might read the original sentence and not be able to understand what the sentence is trying to say in the first place. If this happens, you can try substituting in another answer (try one thats quite different, if possible) to see whether that helps you to understand. If not, youre stuck; guess and move on.
If you get down to 2 answers, do compare them to look for differences, but do this just once. Do not go back and forth multiple times. If you dont know it at the first look, the solution wont suddenly hit you on the third or fourth look. Dont waste a second longer; guess and move on.
In general, once you get stuck, give yourself one shot to unstick yourself. Try comparing different answers to see whether anything new pops out at you. If not, guess and move on.
Half of the battle on the GMAT is knowing when to stop trying. Set explicit cut-offs for yourselfrules for when to let goand stick to them!
Next Steps
Got all of that? Good!
In the second half of this article, Ill give you some drills that you can use to build the different skills needed to get through a sentence correction problem.Go take a look and then start practicing. Good luck!