how to approach SC weakness

[resilient]

I have been trying more SC today and its not a good picture. I am scoring around a 60-70 percent correct. THis is my biggest weakness in verbal. I dont know how to approach all the choices. I know how to see the splits yet cant play the options against each other. Maybe I should get a tutor. Any advice? I have read the grammar books, yet get snagged on many areas!

I need a game plan of some form to finish this. My approach of going through the manhattan gmat and powerscore sentence correction bible has not really brought my scores to a satisfactory level. Im open to all options in order to fix this. Thanks for your help!

[hemanth28]

manhatten SC really helped me a lot ....did you get a chance to take a look at it.
After reading it my strike rate increased from 30-40% correct to 60-70% correct.

[resilient]

yes, i did go through the book and it was pretty helpful. I am now in the 60-70 percent correct range. I am trying to hit atleast 90. These are easy points for verbal just need to devise a plan. Waiting for the pros to chime in!
Hint hint.

so far SC weaknesses:
1.not being able to see the differences during the questions
2. pronouns - Very bad
3. modifiers- pretty bad

[lunarpower]

1.not being able to see the differences during the questions
2. pronouns - Very bad
3. modifiers- pretty bad

(1)
no quick fix here.
the best way to improve your ability to spot different question types is to study the o.g. problems intensely. for each problem, go to the solution in the back and note the classification of the problem (= the boldface heading, such as 'idiom', 'logical predication', and so on). next, try to note as many as possible of the signals in the problem that tell you (even in retrospect) what to look for.
note that some of their categories - such as 'logical predication' - aren't the same as our categories (and, presumably, not the same as the categories used by other prep companies, either). if you need help matching their categories with ours, i can help with that.

(2)
the good thing about pronouns is that they are obvious: there are only a few of them, and even fewer that are used in tricky ways (most notably 'it', 'they', and their derivatives). so, the guideline here is: if you ever see 'it', 'they', or a derivative of either of these, then look long and hard for its antecedent. once you find a possible antecedent, look long and hard to make sure it's the only possible antecedent. those two rules should help you recognize the pronoun issues.

also go through o.g., find every problem that's marked Pronouns in the back, and note the usage that's at issue.

(3)
modifiers are the main component of the problems referred to by o.g. as 'logical predication'. if you find those problems and study the patterns inherent in them, you'll be on better footing.

at this point, i don't feel as though any more specific advice is merited, because 'pronouns' and 'modifiers' are huge, broad, sweeping general categories. if you have issues with PARTICULAR pronoun or modifier issues, feel free to post back (or post to a new thread) for specific treatment of those issues.

good luck!