How to approach SC's

[uptowngirl92]

So all of us have done the bible Manhattan SC..We do tons and tons of SC's before our exam..my question is has anyone defined a step by step approach?I am not talking about naming the chapters here..!(Check for conciseness,parallism,modifier..)
..that is way too vague and elaborate to do in one minute!!Everyone has a certain approach of attacking an SC,all of us do it unconciously,so was wondering if anyone can share their strategy

I for one just thought of it..attack every SC with a planned and uniform step by step approach..NOT randomly..so have'nt made a strategy yet..but..
1.parallism(obviously)>>when in doubt ISOLATE the two parts of a sentence if possible.

2.Check for "when">>Everybody knows the rule..then too we make careless errors .Hunt for these words at the very beginning so no chance of silly mistakes.

3.it/they/them>>Elimination of couple of wrong choices guaranteed.

4"That">>important for SV error

5.Redundancy.Often forget this one.

Please share your strategies!

[punitkaur]

Here is how I do it.

1) Read the question. Try to check based on your memory of whatever rules you remember, see if you can identify any errors. Even if you cannot, its ok. jump to next step without bothering about not being able to identify errors.

2)Immediately look at answer choices and look for what corrections have been proposed. Then you can check the original if the sentence really has that error.

3)Lets say you looked at choice B, that tried correcting the error. If you think it did, eliminate those that did not. So you may be left with 2-3 choices now

4) Now that you might have narrowed down to most likely 2 (happens with me). Read the choices once again word by word and look for missing corrections in either.

5)eliminate.

6)VERY IMPORTANT STEP - check to see that the corrected sentence has the same meaning as the original and it makes complete sense. This is important for questions on verb tenses, where you actually have to make sure that the sentence makes sense, and is not just right structurally.

This is how I do it. Appears lengthy in writing:P, but its very quick. And I read a similiar kind of strategy somewhere in the manhattan forums.

[uptowngirl92]

Thakns!I know i had read something likethis somewhere...anybody else has any views?

[ajayiitr]

I don't think that I have rock-solid entire process laid out for SC.

But, when I see a SC question, I take it like a puzzle, and read word by word or 2-3 words together, thinking if any word i find wrong, suspicious or a signal. So, when there is a pronoun, just try to link it with its antecedent, when there is a and, present participle, that, which, when, where, who, whom etc etc I relate to other parts. I am trying to do it quickly, and when I am done reading the sentence, I have a mental list of errors or suspicions that I have.

Then, I should be able to do a vertical checklist, but, unfortunately, I read choice B, then compare with A, either wrong it or contender, and then to choice C and so on.

More replies will be appreciated, as to see what goes on in mind while doing SC and how can we improve.

[mikeCoolBoy]

1) Read the sentence, extracting the core

2) look at the answer choices, looking for a split. Don't actually read them, just look for a split that let you eliminate answer choices.

3) if you kind re-split using another criteria do so, until you have only correct answer choices, from a grammar point of view.

4) use clarity and concision rules, checking that the answer choice you pick keeps the intended meaning of the original.

5) re-read the sentence with your choice.