Sentence Correction: Get the Most Out of Your First Glance
For the past couple of weeks, weve been learning the 4-step SC Process. (If you havent read that two-part article yet, go do so now!) Also, grab your copy of The Official Guide 13th Edition (OG13); youre going to need it for the exercises in this article.
People often ask what they should check first in SC, or in what order they should check various potential grammar problems. It would take too long to check for a laundry list of error types every time, though, so what to do? You take a First Glance: a 2-3 second glance at the screen with the goal of picking up a clue or two about this problem before you even start reading it.
Open up your OG13 to the SC section right nowany page will doand find a really long underline. Now find a really short one.
How would you react to each of these? Each one has its own hints. Think about this before you keep reading.
A really long underline increases the chances that global issues will be tested. These issues include Structure, Meaning, Modifiers, and Parallelismits easier to test all of these issues when the underline contains a majority of the sentence.
A really short underline (around 5-6 words or fewer) should trigger a change in strategy. Instead of reading the original sentence first, compare the answers to see what the differences are. This wont take long because there arent many words to compare! Those differences can give you ideas as to what the sentence is testing.
Either way, youve now got some ideas about what might be happening in the sentence before you even read itand that is the goal of the First Glance.
Read a Couple of Words
Next, were going to do a drill. Flip to page 672 (print edition) of OG13 but dont read anything yet. Also, open up a notebook or a file on your computer to take notes. (Note: Im starting us on the first page of SC problems because I want to increase the chances that youve already done some of these problems in the past. Its okay if you havent done them all yet. You can also switch to a different page if you want, but Im going to discuss some of these problems below, FYI.)
Start with the first problem on the page. Give yourself a maximum of 5 seconds to glance at that problem. Note the length of the underline. Read the word right before the underline and the first word of the underline, but thats it! Dont read the rest of the sentence. Also go and look at the first word of each answer choice. As you do this, take notes on what you see.
For the next step, you can take all the time you want (but still do not go back and read the full sentence / problem). Ask yourself whether any of that provides any clues.
- Remember what we said about short vs. long underlines above.
- Was the last non-underlined word any kind of maker that youve seen before (such as the word and)? What about the first underlined word?
- Do the differences among the first word in the answer choices provide any clues about what might be tested?
Note that youre not actually going to be able to figure out an answer or even eliminate one from this exercise. The goal is to develop ideas about what might be happening in the sentence before you read it. If I hand a problem to you and say, Think about Modifiers while you do this one, your job just got easier.
Finally, review the problem to see how good your First Glance was. For now, the problem should be one you did a few days to a few weeks agothen you can review it quickly to remind yourself of what was tested and see whether your First Glance was reasonably accurate. As you get better, start testing this out on new problems. (Also, remember that the First Glance wont always give you great clues, but must of the time, you can pick up some valuable ideas.)
Dont forget to play the hindsight game: if you review the full problem and think, Hey, this one was testing Modifiers via the first word of the underline but I didnt pick up on that, perform the First Glance again. This time, ask yourself how the differences could or should signal Modifiers.
As you get better, start testing this out on new problems. (Also, remember that the First Glance wont always give you great clues, but must of the time, you can pick up some valuable ideas.)
Let's look at some examples to see how this works. The very first problem (p. 672, OG13) is a tough one. There are solid clues in the First Glance, but you have to have a lot of experience with the method to notice them. Im going to defer this one for now (but well discuss later, dont worry).
What about #2? Whats the last word before the underline starts?
Its not a word at all; its a semi-colon! The underline starts immediately after, so the first thing you should think is, Okay, Ill be checking that part to make sure its a complete sentence in all of the answer choices.
The original sentence also starts with the word if, but the other answers change substantially, including the higher and when. Something starting with if should have an if-then meaning (even if the word then isnt written explicitly). Something starting with the higher should be making some kind of comparison: the higher I jump, the farther I fall. The more I study, the more I learn. The varied starting points here tell me that I need to examinethe structure and meaning of this portion of the sentencewhat is it that theyre actually trying to convey?
What do you think about #3? The underline starts with have. Thats a verb. What could they be testing? Possibly Subject-Verb Agreement, possibly Verb Tense. Glance down that first word of the answers. Sure enough, some answers are singular vs. plural. Others do change the verb tense from present perfect to past to past perfect. Excellent! When I read this sentence, Ill be looking for the subject and also thinking about what timeframe should be conveyed.
All right, lets go back to that first problem. This one is harder to see; you need more sophisticated First Glance skills in order to pick up on some of the clues.
First, the sentence and underline are long, so suspect Structure, Meaning, Modifiers, or Parallelism. (This will be the case 80% or more of the time with long sentences and underlines.)
Next, the first two words youll read are Swiss psychologists. Youll also train yourself, over time, to add punctuation marks into your glance. The sentence contains a comma a couple of words before the underline starts, so the sentence is looking like it might start with an opening modifier, then a comma, and then the subject of the sentence, Swiss psychologists. (But we dont know for sure yet!)
A glance down the first word of the answers reveals something unusual: the first word is the same in all 5 answers. There is one small difference though (very small!): two of the answers have a comma after the word psychologists.
So what? Well, somethings changing with the structure. You dont know what, yet, but something is definitely changing. This is a good time, then, to read the second word of the answers. Does that give you any ideas?
Answers (A) and (B) say psychologists, declaring. Thats a classic modifier set up: comma + declaring must be introducing a modifier.Answers (C), (D), and (E), by contrast, say psychologists declared. Thats just a straight subject-verb pairing.
Thats fascinating! Why? Because in answers (A) and (B) the subject-verb core of the sentence is NOT psychologists declared. But every sentence has to have a core subject and verb, so what is it in those two answers? Ill be looking for that when I read the original sentence.
When to Compare Answers First
Quick! Start scanning through the OG, starting on page 672, and find the first problem with such a short underline that youd definitely want to look at the answers before you read the original sentence.
Some people might pick #3 or #5. Those ones are on the shorter side, but its still a judgment callsome will want to read the answers first here and some wont.
Question #9, though, is a definite slam dunk. Its so short that you can see at a glance that there are only a couple of differences in the answers. What are they?
- less than vs. fewer than
- those of / that of vs. (nothing)
- 1978 harvest vs. 1978 vs. Indias 1978 harvest
You cant know which versions are correct but you know now that you should be thinking about whether a pronoun is needed (issue #2) or whether the comparison involves countable or non-countable things (issue #1). Both of those items items point to a Comparison in the sentence (what are we comparing and how are we comparing it?), so youll want to find and focus on that comparison when you read the original sentence.
Drill!
Keep trying the above exercises. If youre pretty far into your study already, learn how to get better at the First Glance by using problems youve already studied in the past. Then you can test your skills on new problems.
If youre still pretty early in your study and dont have a lot of already done problems, then youre also still likely concentrating on learning one overall issue at a time (for example, Parallelism or Pronouns). As you do each lesson and try some practice problems, keep the First Glance in mind and, after youve done your homework problems, go back and ask yourself whether you could have gotten more out of your First Glance.
As you continue to analyze your work and think about what a First Glance can reasonably show you, youll start to build more sophisticated skills. Youll discover that, most of the time, you can pick up some clues that will help give you a solid direction when you start to read the original sentence.
Good luck and happy studying!