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gmat strategy question.. for the gmat wizards..

Critical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension
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gmat strategy question.. for the gmat wizards..

by stock2007 » Sun Feb 03, 2008 7:07 am
so..

i have all the arcane and extensive gmat sentence correction grammer rules memorized, pat down.. '

but when i do the questions.. i go more by instinct.. rather than by dialing into my pool of grammer rules..

do any of you know a good way to identify the grammer mistake.. on the sc question..
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by mayonnai5e » Sun Feb 03, 2008 9:47 am
You said you've memorized all the grammar rules yet you can't identify them in the questions? This does not seem very consistent. It sounds like you're learning, but not applying. You should step back and go through the easy section of the OG11, look at each question and identify each error and what rule it is. Create a simple table that identifies the following things for each question:

1) The grammar error(s)
2) The type(s) of error
3) Possible ways to fix the error(s)

This will give you a consistent method of locating errors, identifying the rule violated, and pre-correcting the error before you look at the available solutions. I did this for the first 50 or so questions until I had the methodology down and could do all three in my head very quickly. Note that I suggest the starting with the easy problems because they generally have fewer errors per question and the errors are generally easily identifiable.

Memorizing rules does absolutely nothing for you, it's the application of what you've learned that's important.
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by stock2007 » Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:55 am
thanks buddy..

i think ill try that..

cuz.. i got most of the idioms.. and the 20 other mistakes.. like verb tenses, modifiers ( dangling, misplaced etc ) , pronouns, parallel and comparsion questions, subject-verb agreement, plural-singular, gerunds, posessives.. participles.. subjunctive.. conciseness.. clarity.. redundancy.. if/whether questions, infinitives.. who/whom/that/which questions...
relative prounoun stuff.. antecedent pronoun questions.. semi colon stuff, clauses, phrases, adverb-adjective mistakes.. run on sentences, sentence fragments, elliptical mistakes, fewer/less/among/between type of oddball questions.. etc etc..

pat down.. but when i would read a sentence..

it would take me some time to go " bingo " this is the mistake.. and then.. some more time to identify the kind of mistake.. i would rather.. see the answer choices.. and sort of instinctively analyze the subtle differences in answers.. and pick an answer..

which 80% of the time was right.. but anyway..

thanks
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:09 am
The answer to any strategy choice question is another question: what works for you?

If you have good sentence correction instincts, then answering by ear can be an extremely effective way to attack questions. If you don't have a good ear, then you need to use the rules.

It's also important to remember that it doesn't have to be "either/or"; you may want to go by ear on some questions and use the rules on others.

For example, if you know that your ear often fails you on pronoun questions, then you need to be looking for pronouns in the underlined portion of the sentence and, if you see one, use a more formal approach on that question. A lot of people have issues picking up modification issues by ear, so that may be another thing you want to flag.
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by mayonnai5e » Sun Feb 03, 2008 3:34 pm
I agree with Stuart in principal because that really is how most people end up solving the questions. The problem is that stock2007's post suggests that solving by ear is not working for him. Also, in my experience, there are certain incorrect answer choices that GMAT includes precisely because they sound right. Those are the trap answers that a test taker that can clearly identify the errors will avoid.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/my-blog-erro ... t4899.html
550 =\ ...560 =\... 650 =) ...570 =( ...540 =*( ...680 =P ... 670 =T ...=T... 650 =T ...700 =) ..690 =) ...710 =D ...GMAT 720 DING!! ;D

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