Chapter 15
Sentence Correction
GMAT sentence correction involves finding a grammatical mistake (if there is one) in the original sentence and then finding the answer choice that fixes it. This chapter will begin with a review of grammar as it is tested on the GMAT and then move on to show you how to recognize the key errors the test-writers like to test. Then you’ll learn how to use the answer choices as clues to find the correct answer.
Directions: Each sentence correction question refers to a sentence, a portion or all of which has been underlined. If you think the sentence is correct as written, pick the first answer choice, which simply repeats the underlined portion exactly. If you think there is something wrong with the sentence as written, choose the answer choice that best replaces the underlined portion of the
sentence.
Sentence correction questions are designed to measure your correct use of grammar, your ability to form clear and effective sentences and your capacity to choose the most appropriate words. Pick the answer that best states what was meant in the original sentence while adhering to the requirements of standard written English. Avoid constructions that are awkward, unclear, or redundant.
The Bad News
It’s important to understand the fine print of the instructions you’ve just read. The test writers ask you to choose the “best” answer, by which they mean the answer that they think is right. The bad news is that some of the “correct” answer choices for the GMAT’s sentence correction questions will probably not sound correct to you. The rules of English as interpreted by the GMAT are very different from the rules of English
that govern what we read in newspapers, hear on television, or speak in our everyday lives.
GMAT English
GMAT English should be studied the same way you would approach any other foreign language. It has its own rules and its own internal logic. GMAT English has much in common with American English, but if you rely solely on your ear, you may get into trouble.
The Good News
The people who write the GMAT try to stick to the basics. If they tested a controversial point of grammar, they might be proven wrong. They don’t want to have to change their minds after a test is given and mail 20,000 letters explaining why they’re changing the answer key (something that has happened from time to time in the past). The easiest way to avoid trouble is to test a handful of the rules of standard written English.
SENTENCE CORRECTION: CRACKING THE SYSTEM
In this chapter, we’ll show you the most common types of errors that are tested in GMAT sentences and how to spot them. We’ll show you how the test writers choose the four incorrect choices for each question, and we’ll show you how to use Process of Elimination to make your life a lot easier.
Order of Difficulty
The Verbal section of the GMAT is computer-adaptive, meaning that the GMAT chooses questions for you from a large pool, based on your responses to previous questions. Theoretically, the computer knows which questions in its pool are easy and which are difficult. However, when it comes to sentence corrections, most of our students find that they can’t tell the difference; “easy” questions often seem as poorly worded as “difficult”
questions. You will discover that The Princeton Review techniques make the relative difficulty of sentence correction questions pretty meaningless.
Process of Elimination
Most people approach sentence correction questions the same way. They read the original sentence and then read the entire sentence again, substituting the first answer choice for the underlined part. Then they go back and do the same thing for the second, third, and fourth answer choices. This approach is both laborious and confusing. It’s hard to keep five different versions of the same sentence straight, especially when all five of them are awkward.
Write It Down
Effective use of POE on the GMAT always involves your scratch booklet and always involves thinking of the answer choices as A, B, C, D, and E, even though they are not labeled that way onscreen. As you eliminate answer choices, you should cross them off in your scratch booklet.
Basic Principles
Let’s look at a sentence correction question that’s written in a way that you will unfortunately never see on the real GMAT—with only the correct answer listed:
Piece of cake, right? It gets a little harder when they throw in the other four answer choices. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure why the last answer choice—what we call answer choice E—is better than the original sentence. We will cover how to spot this type of error (pronoun reference) a little later in the chapter. For now, it’s enough to know that the “they” in the underlined portion of the sentence was ambiguous. It
wasn’t clear whether “they” referred to “registered brokerage firms,” “details,” or the “computerized program trades.”
Zen and the Art of Test Writing
Let’s put ourselves in the place of the GMAT test writer who wrote this question. He has just finished his sentence and he has his correct answer, but he isn’t finished yet. He still has to write four other answer choices. It’s actually kind of difficult to come up with four answer choices that seem plausible but are wrong. If the test writer makes the incorrect choices too obviously wrong, Joe Bloggs might be able to pick the correct answer without
having really understood the rule of grammar involved. If the test writer makes the incorrect answer choices too subtle, Joe won’t find one that seems right to him, and therefore might guess at random. The test writer does not want Joe to guess at random. If Joe guesses at random, he might actually pick the right answer.
One Down, Four to Go
Coming up with the correct answer is easy for our test writer—after all, he wrote the question. He will probably spend much more time on the incorrect answer choices.
Answer Choice A
Composing the first wrong answer choice is also easy for our test writer; the first of the answer choices (what we call answer choice A) is always a repeat of the underlined part of the original sentence. Obviously, this is the choice to select if you think that the sentence is correct as it’s written. Two down, three to go.
If You Can’t Sell a Lemon, Repackage It
To see whether Joe has spotted the error in the sentence, the GMAT test writer will include the same error in at least one, and usually two, of the other answer choices. If Joe didn’t like the error in the original sentence, maybe he’ll like it better surrounded by different words. Look at the same sentence again, this time with two incorrect answer choices that include the error found in the original sentence:
Joe Bloggs has no idea what point of grammar is tested in this question. He picks answers because they sound good. Our test writer hopes that one of these answer choices will sound better to Joe than the correct answer. Both choices change the sentence, but both also still contain the ambiguous word “they,” so both are still wrong.
Almost Right
Our test writer has one more kind of trap to insert into a question. This time the trap isn’t for Joe Bloggs; it’s for the person who has spotted the error in the sentence but isn’t in too big a hurry to make fine distinctions.
Answer choice D fixes the original problem; there is no longer an ambiguous “they” in the sentence. Our test writer is hoping that anyone who has spotted the original error will read just far enough to see that answer choice D fixes it, but not far enough to see that there is something else wrong. What’s wrong? On the GMAT, only animate objects are “able” to do anything.
Three Down, Two to Go
Let’s look at the entire problem, now that our test writer has finished it, and count our blessings.
Here’s How to Crack It
By spotting what was wrong in the original sentence, we could have eliminated three of the five answer choices. Choice A merely repeats the original sentence word for word. Choices B and C contain the same error that was found in the original sentence.
Our Basic Approach
To use POE, you must be able to spot the errors in the original sentences. Fortunately, as we said before, GMAC leans heavily on only a few major types of errors. Just recognizing these errors should enable you to answer many of the sentence correction problems. There are two ways to do this.
Plan A
The first step in your sentence correction strategy should be to read the original sentence, looking for the very specific errors that the test writers like to test. As soon as you spot an error, you can eliminate any answer choices that repeat this error. Then, having gotten rid of several choices, you can actually read the remaining choices carefully to see which is best.
Plan B
If you don’t spot the error as you read the original sentence, then the second step in your sentence correction strategy is to go straight to the answer choices to look for clues. Here are the answer choices to a real GMAT problem:
 |
gentleman of the eighteenth century protected their clothing while having their wig powdered by poking their head |
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gentleman of the eighteenth century protected his clothing while having his wig powdered by poking his head |
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gentleman of the eighteenth century protected their clothing while having their wigs powdered by poking their heads |
| |
gentlemen of the eighteenth century protected his clothing while having his wig powdered by poking his head |
| |
gentlemen of the eighteenth century protected their clothing while having his wig powdered by poking his head |
Forget about the original sentence entirely for a moment (pretty easy, because we didn’t give it to you). Just look at the first word of each of the choices. Does anything strike you?
The Most Common Error Is No Error
While we are going to teach you to spot the eight most common errors used by the GMAT test writers, you should know that about one-fifth of the sentence correction sentences are fine just the way they are. If a sentence is correct as-is, the “best” answer is the first answer choice (what we call choice A), which repeats the original sentence. According to the law of averages, two or three of the sentence correction questions you will see on the GMAT will
contain no error.
Before We Start, Some Basic Terminology
You won’t be asked to name the parts of speech on the GMAT. However, an acquaintance with some of these terms is necessary to understand the techniques we’re about to show you.
- A noun is a word that’s used to name a person, place, thing, or idea.
- A verb is a word that expresses action.
Here is a very basic sentence:
In this sentence, Sue and box are both nouns, and opened is a verb. Sue is considered the subject of this sentence because it is the person, place, or thing doing the verb. Box is considered the object of the sentence because it receives the action of the verb.
- An adjective is a word that modifies a noun.
- An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb.
- A preposition is a word that notes the relation of a noun to an action or a thing.
- A phrase is a group of words acting as a single part of speech. A phrase is missing either a subject or a verb or both.
- A prepositional phrase is a group of words beginning with a preposition. Like any phrase, a prepositional phrase does not contain both a subject and a verb.
Here’s a more complicated version of the same sentence:
Sue quickly opened the big box of chocolates.
In this sentence, quickly is an adverb modifying the verb opened. Big is an adjective modifying the noun box. Of is a preposition because it shows a relation between box and chocolates. Of chocolates is a prepositional phrase that acts like an adjective by modifying box.
- A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun.
- A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb.
Here’s an even more complicated version of the same sentence:
Because she was famished, Sue quickly opened the big box of chocolates.
There are two clauses in this sentence. Sue quickly opened the big box of chocolates is considered an independent clause because it contains the main idea of the sentence and could stand by itself. Because she was famished is also a clause (it contains a subject and a verb), but it cannot stand by itself. This is known as a dependent clause. The word she is a pronoun referring to the noun Sue.
THE MAJOR ERRORS OF GMAT ENGLISH
1. Pronoun Errors
There are two main types of pronoun errors. The first is called pronoun reference. You saw an example of this in the sentence about program trading. Take a look at a simple example:
Samantha and Jane went shopping, but she couldn’t find anything she liked.
This type of mistake used to drive Harold Ross, the founding editor of The New Yorker, crazy. He was famous for scrawling Who he? in the margins of writers’ manuscripts. It is supposed to be absolutely clear who is being referred to by a pronoun. In the example above, the pronoun she could refer to either Samantha or Jane. The pronoun is ambiguous and must be fixed. It can be fixed in three different ways:
Samantha and Jane went shopping, but Samantha couldn’t find anything she liked.
The second type of pronoun error is called pronoun number (singular or plural). Here is a simple example:
The average male moviegoer expects to see at least one scene of violence per film, and they are seldom disappointed.
In this case, the pronoun they clearly refers to the average male moviegoer, so there is no ambiguity of reference. However, the average male moviegoer is singular. They cannot take the place of a singular noun. There is really only one way to fix this sentence.
The average male moviegoer expects to see at least one scene of violence per film, and he is seldom disappointed.
The people who write the GMAT are very fond of both of these types of errors and routinely make use of them. By the way, as we mentioned earlier, you don’t have to memorize any of the terminology we use. You simply have to recognize a GMAT English error when you see it.
How Do You Spot a Pronoun Error?
That’s easy. Look for pronouns.
| Singular |
Plural |
Can Be Singular or Plural
Depending on Context
|
| I, me |
we, us |
some |
| he, him |
they, them |
none |
| she, her |
both |
ours |
| it |
these |
you |
| each |
those |
who |
| another |
|
which |
| one |
|
what |
| other |
|
that |
| mine |
|
|
| yours |
|
|
| his, hers |
|
|
| this |
|
|
| either |
|
|
| neither |
|
|
| each |
|
|
| everyone |
|
|
| nobody |
|
|
| no one |
|
|
Every single time you spot a pronoun, you should immediately ask yourself the following two questions:
- Is it completely clear, not just to me but to a pedantic GMAT test writer, who or what the pronoun is referring to?
- Does the pronoun agree in number with the noun it is referring to?
Let’s look at an example.
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence for the first time, look to see if there is a pronoun. There is: they. Let’s make sure the pronoun is used correctly. Who is the they supposed to refer to? Brussels. Is Brussels plural? No, it’s the name of a city.
2. Misplaced Modifiers
Misplaced modifiers come in several forms, but the test writers’ favorite looks like this:
Coming out of the department store, John’s wallet was stolen.
When a sentence begins with a participial phrase (just a fancy term for a phrase that starts with a verb ending in -ing), that phrase is supposed to modify the noun or pronoun immediately following it.
Coming out of the department store, John was robbed of his wallet.
Or, we could change the first half of the sentence into an adverbial clause (which contains its own subject) so that it is no longer necessary for the first half of the sentence to modify the noun that follows it:
As John was coming out of the department store, his wallet was stolen.
Other forms of misplaced modifiers include:
A. participial phrases preceded by a preposition:
On leaving the department store, John’s wallet was stolen.
(Correct:
On leaving the department store, John was robbed of his wallet.)
B. adjectives:
Frail and weak, the heavy wagon could not be budged by the old horse.
(Correct: Frail and weak, the old horse could not budge the heavy wagon.)
C. adjectival phrases:
An organization long devoted to the cause of justice, the mayor awarded a medal to the American Civil Liberties Union.
How Do You Spot a Misplaced Modifier?
That’s easy. Whenever a sentence begins with a modifying phrase that’s followed by a comma, the noun or pronoun right after the comma should be what the phrase is referring to. Every single time you see a sentence that begins with a modifying phrase, check to make sure that it modifies the right noun or pronoun. If it doesn’t, you’ve spotted the error in the sentence.
Written in 1961, Joseph Heller scored a literary hit with his comedic first novel, Catch-22.
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Written in 1961, Joseph Heller scored a literary hit with his comedic first novel, Catch-22. |
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Written in 1961, Joseph Heller scored a literary hit with Catch-22, his comedic first novel. |
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Written in 1961, Catch-22, the comedic first novel by Joseph Heller, was a literary hit. |
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Catch-22, which was written in 1961 by Joseph Heller, scored a literary hit with his comedic first novel. |
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Catch-22, the comedic first novel, scored a literary hit for Joseph Heller by its being written in 1961. |
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence for the first time, go through your checklist. Is there a pronoun error in the sentence? No. Does the sentence begin with a modifying phrase? Yes. Now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s check to see if the modifying phrase actually modifies what it is supposed to. Does it? No. “Joseph Heller” is not what was written in 1961. This is a misplaced modifier.
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: Go through your checklist. Is there a pronoun in this sentence? Yes, the third to last word of the sentence is a pronoun, but it clearly refers back to the certificate of deposit. False alarm. Does the sentence begin with a modifying phrase? Yes. Now we’re getting warmer. Check to see whether the modifying phrase modifies what it’s supposed to modify. Does although not quite as liquid an investment…refer to financial
experts? No. This is a misplaced modifier.
Although not quite as liquid an investment as a money-market account, a certificate of deposit is recommended by financial experts for its high yield.
However, you can’t fix this sentence that way for the very good reason that only the first phrase of the sentence was underlined. This time, you’ll have to find a way to fix the modifying phrase itself. Look for an answer choice that changes the modifying phrase into an adverbial clause with its own subject and verb.
A close relative of a misplaced modifier is a dangling modifier. You can spot the two errors in the same way. Here’s a simple example:
Before designing a park, the public must be considered.
Again, this sentence starts with a modifying phrase followed by a comma. The noun following the comma is what the modifying phrase is supposed to modify. Does it? No! The public didn’t design the park. So who did? A dangling modifier differs from a misplaced modifier in that a dangling modifier doesn’t just modify the wrong word—it doesn’t modify any word.
Before designing a park, the architect must consider the public.
3. Parallel Construction
There are two kinds of GMAT sentences that test parallel construction. The first is a sentence that contains a list or has a series of actions set off from one another by commas. Here’s an example:
Among the reasons cited for the city councilwoman’s decision not to run for reelection were the high cost of a campaign, the lack of support from her party, and desiring to spend more time with her family.
When a main verb controls several phrases that follow it, each of those phrases has to be set up in the same way. In the sentence above, three reasons were listed. The three reasons were (main verb):
the high cost of a campaign,
the lack of support from her party,
and
desiring to spend more time with her family.
The construction of each of the three reasons is supposed to be parallel. The first two items on the list are phrases that are essentially functioning as nouns: the high cost (of a campaign); the lack (of support from her party). However, the third item on the list seems more like a verb than a noun. How could we change the word desiring to a noun? If you said, “the desire,” you were absolutely correct. It should
read:
the high cost of a campaign,
the lack of support from her party,
and
the desire to spend more time with her family.
The second kind of GMAT sentence that tests parallel construction is a sentence that’s divided into two parts. Here’s an example:
To say that the song patterns of the common robin are less complex than those of the indigo bunting is doing a great disservice to both birds.
If the first half of a sentence is constructed in a particular way, the second half must be constructed in the same way. The first half of this sentence begins, “To …”; therefore; the second half has to begin the same way:
To say that the song patterns of the common robin are less complex than those of the indigo bunting is to do a great disservice to both birds.
How Do You Spot Parallel Construction?
That’s easy. Every time you read a sentence correction problem, look to see if you can find a series of actions, a list of several things, or a sentence that is divided into two parts.
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence for the first time, run through your checklist: Is there a pronoun? No. Does the sentence begin with a modifying phrase? Yes, but the word after the phrase is what is supposed to be modified, so this is not a misplaced modifier. Is there a series or list of three things or a series of actions? Yes. Let’s see if all the actions are parallel. The average American…
speaks (1.3 languages)
buys (a new car…)
drinks (14 gallons…)
and
forgot (to pay…)
The first three verbs are all in the present tense, but the fourth one is in the past tense. The problem in this sentence is a lack of parallel construction.
4. Parallel Comparison
Another form of parallel construction error that appears on the GMAT is what we call faulty comparison sentences. Here’s a simple example:
The people in my office are smarter than other offices.
Taken literally, this sentence compares the people in my office with other offices. Therefore, it’s an example of faulty comparison—it compares two dissimilar things (in this case, people and offices). To fix this sentence, we need to make the comparison clear or parallel. There are two ways to do this:
The people in my office are smarter than the people in other offices.
or
The people in my office are smarter than those in other offices.
We hope that you recognized those as a pronoun that takes the place of the people. The correct answer to a parallel comparison question on the GMAT almost invariably involves the use of a pronoun (that or those) rather than a repetition of the noun.
Synthetic oils burn less efficiently than natural oils.
In this case, what is compared is not the two types of oil, but how well each type of oil burns. You could fix this by changing the sentence to read,
Synthetic oils burn less efficiently than natural oils burn.
However, the GMAT test writers would rather that you fix it by replacing the second verb (in this case, burn) with a replacement verb (do or does.) Here is how GMAC would like to see this sentence rewritten:
Synthetic oils burn less efficiently than do natural oils.
How Do You Spot Parallel Comparison?
Look for sentences that make comparisons. These sentences often include words such as than, as, similar to, and like. When you find one of these comparison words, check to see whether the two things compared are really comparable.
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: Go through your checklist: Do you see any suspicious pronouns, misplaced modifiers, or unparallel constructions? Good. There aren’t any. Do you see any comparison words? Yes, the sentence uses “are” and “similar to.” Let’s see exactly what is being compared. The symptoms of one illness are being compared directly to … another illness. Aha! This is a parallel comparison error. To make
this sentence correct, we need to compare the “symptoms” of one illness to the “symptoms” of the other, and the way GMAC would prefer that we do it is by using a replacement pronoun.
5. Tense
On the GMAT, tense problems are often just a matter of parallel construction. In general, if a sentence starts out in one tense, it should probably stay there. Let’s look at an example:
When he was younger, he walked three miles every day and has lifted weights, too.
The clause when he was younger puts the entire sentence firmly in the past. Thus, the two verbs that follow should be in the past tense as well. You may not have known the technical term for has lifted (the present perfect tense), but you probably noticed that it was inconsistent with walked (the simple past tense). The sentence should read:
When he was younger, he walked three miles every day and lifted weights, too.
Here are the tenses that come up on the GMAT:
|
Tense
|
Example
|
present
|
He walks three miles a day.
|
simple past
|
When he was younger, he walked three miles a day.
|
present perfect
|
He has walked three miles a day for the last several years.
|
past perfect
|
He had walked three miles a day until he bought his motorcycle.
|
| future |
He will walk three miles a day, starting tomorrow. |
It isn’t important that you know the names of these tenses as long as you understand how they’re used. As we said before, a sentence that begins in one tense should generally stay in that tense. For example, a sentence that begins in the present perfect (which describes an action that has happened in the past, but is potentially going on in the present as well) should stay in the present perfect.
He has walked three miles a day for the last several years and has never complained.
One exception to this rule is a sentence that contains the past perfect (in which one action in the past happened before another action in the past). By definition, any action set in the past perfect must have another action that comes after it, set in the simple past.
He had ridden his motorcycle for two hours when it ran out of gas.
The only other exceptions to this rule come up when one action in a sentence clearly precedes another.
The dinosaurs are extinct now, but they were once present on the earth in large numbers.
In this case, the sentence clearly refers to two different time periods: now, which requires the present tense, and a period long ago, which requires the past tense.
How Do You Spot Tense Errors?
By now, you probably have a pretty good sense of what to do. Using Plan A, look for changes in verb tense in the sentence. Or, using Plan B, look for changes in verb tense in the answer choices. If the answer choices give you several versions of a particular verb themselves, then you should be looking to see which one is correct. Here’s an example:
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence, go through your checklist. There is one pronoun (they) in the sentence, but in this case it clearly refers only to the children. Is there a modifying phrase? No. Is there a list of things or a series of actions? Not really. Are the verb tenses inconsistent? Hmm. Now we’re getting somewhere. The first verb, “maintains,” is in the present tense. So is the verb “eat.” But the third
verb, “took,” which is supposed to be a parallel action with “eat,” is in the past tense.
…that if children eat a diet high in vitamins and
took vitamin supplements…
Obviously, the two verbs are inconsistent with each other, and because only one of them is underlined, that’s the one that must be wrong. The correct sentence must have a take in it, so we can eliminate choices A and B. Choice C puts the rest of the sentence in the past tense, so scratch C. Choice D puts the rest of the sentence in the future tense. This might be acceptable, but the choice also uses the incorrect idiomatic
expression likely of catching. We’ll talk more about idioms in a moment. The correct answer to this question is E, which keeps the entire sentence in the present tense.
6. Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
A verb is supposed to agree with its subject. Let’s look at an example:
The number of arrests of drunken drivers are increasing every year.
GMAT test writers like to separate the subject of a sentence from its verb with several prepositional phrases, so that by the time you get to the verb you’ve forgotten whether the subject was singular or plural.
The number (of arrests of drunken drivers) are…
To fix this sentence we need to make the verb agree with the subject.
The number (of arrests of drunken drivers) is increasing every year.
How to Spot Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
Cover up the prepositional phrases between the subject and the verb of each clause of the sentence so you can see whether there is an agreement problem. You should also be on the lookout for nouns that sound plural but are in fact singular.
- The Netherlands (the name of any city, state, or country)
- Tom or John (any two singular nouns connected by or)
- the family
- the audience
- politics
- measles
- the number
- the amount
You are already on the lookout for pronouns because they’re first on your checklist. Sometimes pronouns can be the subject of a sentence, in which case the verb has to agree with the pronoun. There are some pronouns that people tend to think are plural when they are in fact singular:
| everyone |
no one |
anyone |
none |
| everybody |
nobody |
anybody |
each |
| everything |
nothing |
anything |
|
Let’s look at an example of a subject-verb error as it might appear on the GMAT:
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence for the first time, run through your mental checklist. Is there a pronoun, a modifying phrase, a list of several things, a series of parallel actions, or a change in tense? Not this time. Let’s check for subject-verb agreement. The subject of the independent clause is “insiders” and the correct verb, “believe,” follows almost immediately, so there’s no problem in
the main clause.
…the dissension (in Congress over health issues) decrease…
Is this correct? No, the singular “dissension” needs the singular verb “decreases.” Looking at the answers, we can immediately eliminate choices A, B, and C. Now let’s examine choices D and E. Both fix the subject-verb error, but choice D uses the unidiomatic expression “likelihood for,” and it also uses “being” instead of “will be.” The correct answer is choice E.
7. Idiom
GMAC likes to test certain idiomatic expressions. Here’s an easy example:
There is little doubt that large corporations are indebted for the small companies that broke new ground in laser optics.
It is incorrect to say you are indebted for someone.
There is little doubt that large corporations are indebted to the small companies that broke new ground in laser optics.
Idiomatic errors are difficult to spot because there is no one problem to look for. In fact, there are really no rules. Each idiom has its own particular usage. There is no real reason an idiomatic expression is correct. It is simply a matter of custom.
How Do You Spot Idiomatic Errors?
If you’ve gone through the first six items on your checklist—pronouns, misplaced modifiers, parallel construction, faulty comparison, tense, and subject-verb agreement—and still haven’t found an error, try pulling any idiomatic expressions out of the sentence so that you can see whether they’re correct.
I am indebted for my parents for offering to help pay for graduate school.
Does that sound right? Of course not. I am indebted to my parents. Usually, if you take the expression out of the long and awkward sentence and use it in an everyday sentence, the error (if there is one) will be obvious. Here’s what an idiom question might look like on the GMAT:
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As always, run through your checklist. Is there a pronoun in the sentence? Yes, but if you check the answer choices, you’ll discover that the same pronoun appears in each one. Obviously, pronoun error is not what is tested this time. Is there a modifying phrase? No. So much for misplaced modifiers. Is there a list of things or a series of actions? No. To be sure that there really is no parallel construction problem, we should look
at the two halves of the sentence as well. The first half, “… has been shown,” matches the second half, “… has also been shown,” and both are in the same tense, so there is no problem with either parallel construction or tense. There are no comparison words either, so we don’t have to worry about faulty comparison. Could there be something wrong with an idiomatic expression in the original sentence? Let’s try a sentence of
our own.
How would you finish this sentence? If you said something like “… but he is also disgusting,” you would be absolutely correct. In GMAT English, “not only …” is always followed somewhere in the same sentence by “but also.…” Let’s look at the answer choices to see which can be eliminated. A, B, and E all use some other conjunction instead of “but,” which
means that the only possible answers are C and D. Choice D uses “in addition” instead of “also.” This might not be fatal, but then keep reading after the underlining: “helpful in addition for relieve the suffering of arthritis.” If the word “for” seems to stick out, it is because we need to form the infinitive case of “relieve” by using “to.” Thus, the correct answer is C.
The Idioms Most Commonly Tested on the GMAT
There are, of course, thousands of idiomatic expressions that could be tested on the GMAT. But here are a handful that seem to come up all the time.
| not only … but also… |
according to |
| not so much … as… |
agree with |
| defined as |
appear to |
| regard as |
because of |
| neither … nor… |
choose from |
| modeled after |
conclude that |
| based on |
contribute to |
| a result of |
depend on |
| to result in |
due to |
| a debate over |
in order to |
| a dispute over |
instead of |
| a responsibility to |
rather than |
| responsible for |
subject to |
| different from |
worry about |
| a consequence of |
think of … as |
| so … as to be… |
see … as |
| so (adjective) that |
target … as |
| depicted as |
prohibit from |
| define as |
distinguish between … and… |
| as great as |
distinguish … from… |
| as good as, or better than |
attributed to |
| credited with |
|
THE MINOR ERRORS OF GMAT ENGLISH
The seven errors you’ve just learned to spot will enable you to answer most of the sentence correction problems that come up on the GMAT. However, there is one more error that shows up often enough that you will probably want to be looking out for it.
8. Quantity Words
GMAC likes to see if you know how to indicate quantity. Here’s an example:
On the flight to Los Angeles, Nancy had to choose among two dinner entrees.
If there were more than two items being compared, then “among” would be correct. However, if there are only two choices available, the correct quantity word would be “between.”
On the flight to Los Angeles, Nancy had to choose between two dinner entrees.
Below are the comparison quantity words that come up on the GMAT most frequently:
| If two items |
If more than two items |
| between |
among |
| more |
most |
| better |
best |
| less |
least |
Another type of quantity word that shows up on the GMAT from time to time involves things that can be counted as opposed to things that can’t. For example, if you were standing in line at a buffet, and you didn’t want as big a serving of soup as the person in front of you received, which of the following would be correct?
Could I have fewer soup, please?
If an item can’t be counted, the correct adjective would be “less.” However, if we were talking about french fries (which can be counted), the correct adjective would be “fewer.”
| Countable items |
Uncountable items |
| fewer |
less |
| number |
amount, quantity |
| many |
much |
How Do You Spot Quantity Word Errors?
That’s easy. Look for quantity words. Whenever you see a “between,” check to see if there are only two items discussed in the sentence. (If there are more, you’ll need an “among.”) Whenever you see an “amount,” make sure that whatever is discussed cannot be counted. (If the sentence is talking about the “amount” of people, then you’ll need to change it to “number.”)
Here’s How to Crack It
This allows us to eliminate choices A and D immediately. Choice C gives the impression that it is the question that is perplexed. Eliminate it. Choice E incorrectly positions “the most” after the word it is supposed to modify. The correct answer is choice B.
One Last Example
Here’s How to Crack It
Plan A: As you read the sentence, go through your checklist. Is there a pronoun? No. Does the sentence begin with a modifying phrase? No. Is there a list of several things or a series of actions? No. Is there a tense error? No. Is there a subject-verb problem? No. Is there a comparison word such as “similar” or “than”? No. Are there any quantity words to check? No. Do any expressions in the sentence seem suspicious? No.
If You’re Really Gung Ho
You can expand your checklist to include as many types of errors as you like. Obviously, the more types of errors you can identify, the better prepared you’ll be to take the test. But you should bear in mind that while there are other types of errors that we haven’t discussed, these errors don’t come up very often on the GMAT. Some of the errors to consider: redundant words, misuse of the subjunctive mood, and the use of the passive voice when the
active voice is possible. If you’re seriously gunning to get every sentence correction question correct, you should dig out your old grammar book from high school and study it carefully. You should also do as many of the real GMAT sentence correction questions in The
Official Guide for GMAT Review as you can; pay special attention to the idiomatic expressions that come up in these sections, because these are sometimes repeated.
Summary
- GMAT English is different from American English, and you have to learn the rules of GMAT English to do well on the test.
- Fortunately, sentence correction questions test only a handful of rules. Once you learn them, you will be able to score quite well on this type of question.
- There are two Princeton Review techniques that together will help you to ace Sentence Correction: Plan A, in which you look for specific errors as you read the sentence, and Plan B, in which you treat differences among the answer choices as clues that will help you spot the error.
- Make a checklist of errors to look for when you read a sentence correction question. The most common are:
- Pronouns: If a sentence contains a pronoun, check to see whether it clearly refers to the noun it is replacing; also check to see whether the pronoun agrees in number with the noun to which it refers.
- Misplaced modifiers: If the sentence begins with a modifying phrase, check to make sure that the noun it modifies comes directly after the modifying phrase.
- Parallel construction: If a sentence contains a list of things, or actions, or is broken up into two halves, check to make sure the parts of the sentence are parallel.
- Parallel comparison: When a sentence makes a comparison, check to see whether the two things compared are really comparable.
- Tense: If the answer choices contain different verb tenses, make sure that the tense of the verb or verbs in the original sentence is correct. For the most part, verb tense should be consistent throughout a sentence.
- Subject-verb agreement: GMAT test writers sometimes put extraneous prepositional phrases between the subject and the verb. Cover up or ignore these phrases so that you can see whether the subject and the verb of each clause in the sentence agree with each other.
- Idiom: If a sentence contains an idiomatic expression that seems wrong to you, try taking the expression out of the sentence and creating a sentence of your own with the suspect expression.
- Quantity words: Whenever you see a quantity word (countable vs. uncountable; two vs. three or more), check to see if it is used correctly.
- If you’ve spotted the error, go through the answer choices and eliminate any that contain the same error. Then look at the remaining answer choices and find the one that fixes the sentence.
- If you can’t find the error, look to the answer choices for clues. Then consider the possibility that there might not be an error.
- About one-fifth of the sentences are correct as they are. When a sentence is correct, the answer is choice A, which simply repeats the sentence word for word.
- Once you’ve gained confidence in your ability to spot the major errors, you should expand your checklist to include other types of errors.
