Sentence Correction

Hello all,

I've completed my quantitative studies and met my goal score in tests. However,
my verbal score is very low and is because of SC. I've just started MGMAT SC, and
after reading chapters 2 and 3 I have become overwhelmed with all of the rules
that I really never thought about. Has anyone else felt this way about SC? I'm
going to keep trying my best and I'm confident I can improve my pathetic 25 in V.
(2/15 on SC questions).

Hey,

I'm studying the same book that you are studying. I'd definitely agree that it is not very easy to get through. I read the book as though it were full of guidelines. I skim through the chapters: slowing down on parts I haven't seen before, speeding up when I know the topic, and I read carefully through the practice problems.

That's about all the tips I have, I'm halfway finished with the book - SC is also the bane of my GMAT score (missed 10 on my last practice!)

I'm really having trouble with the basics. I read the chapter and do the problems
at the end and do my best. However, after reading the solutions I feel like I'm
still missing something. It's a shame because my accuracy on CR / RC questions are
outstanding, and my quantitative score is at my goal. I'm working hard on SC but these
concepts are for the most part completely new to me, despite me being a native English
speaker.

Do you finish exams with extra time? I average finishing the verbal section with 15 minutes to go, I found that when I read through the question and give myself more time to think about it, my accuracy goes up a lot higher.

Yea I usually have around 15 minutes left too. I usually read the CR / RC questions pretty
extensively. My % correct on those questions is usually around 75ish. However, when I see
SC questions, I look for the 3/2 split, but am having trouble applying the rules of SC that
I learned in MGMAT SC to the question for some reason. I guess I'm going to try and keep
practicing since I'm in no rush to take the exam, however I really still need to maintain
by Quant skills (want to keep my Q score average at 47 like I have been). Hopefully I can
somehow raise my verbal score to the higher 30's within a month of practice. Good luck with
your exam, let me know if you find any different method that works better for you!

You know more grammar than you think you do, but it can be overwhelming when people start throwing all of these terms at you.

The thing that you need to do first - and perhaps this will be enough to take you in the direction you really want to go is to start looking for modifiers and prepositions and looking past these. The 3/2 split - or what I call in a more comprehensive manner "decision points" - meaning all of those differences between answer choices where only one can be right and the other is wrong. The 3/2 split is just one type of decision point as these occur when you are down to two or three choices as well.

As I was saying, these decision points are only one strategy for solving sentence correction questions. Getting rid of the unnecessary part of the sentence is another strategy that can really show you that you have much more knowledge of grammar than you thought.

So get very comfortable with prepositions and look past those as they are usually not helpful. Work on identifying prepositions in sentences in your daily life or your other GMAT studies, critical reasoning for example. The other thing to work on getting out of the way is modifiers. I have a technique called "use it or lose it" with modifiers. Basically it comes down to the fact that modifiers can usually only be misplaced. If a modifier is misplaced you "use it" to eliminate the answer choice. If it is not misplaced you "lose it" meaning you read the sentence without it.

If you "slash and burn" as we call it a Veritas and you get some of the clutter out of the way your sentence correction will improve whether you can state the difference between an appositive and and a participle or not.

Here is a post on "use it or lose it" https://www.beatthegmat.com/unlike-water ... tml#323651

Here are a couple of other posts for you to peruse. https://www.beatthegmat.com/sentence-cor ... tml#314428

Here is an article as well: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/01/ ... correction

Appreciate the tips, I'll be sure to check out those links!

brood1989 wrote:despite me being a native English
speaker.

despite my being a native speaker LOLs

Is it really? That sounds awful..

brood1989 wrote:Is it really? That sounds awful..

The possessive modifying the gerund (my being a native speaker) is usually the correct form, because it's usually the action that's really the issue, rather than the person. There are instances where me [verb]-ing would be correct, but those will be the ones where me alone would be grammatically correct, but lacking an essential detail (They found me hiding in the closet).