The 800 Gmat Blog

General Principles:

• Simplification
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Mood, Tense and Voice
• Pronouns
• Modifiers
• Parallelism
• Comparisons
• Idioms

Sentence correction on the gmat is probably the area where most students can improve their score. If you know all the bag of tricks you should get 90% correct.

For those interested, the Manhattan Gmat Sentence Correction Guide is the best book on sentence correction. Buy this book now. This hidden treasure is the most concise step by step book on mastering the sentence correction section on the GMAT. Without it you will be at a serious disadvantage. Plus you get free access to Manhattan gmat’s 6 practice tests. We like free.

Here is a typical sentence correction question:

The study indicates that even after a decade men still experience some effects of a breakup occurred when a child.

A)occurred when children

B)occurred when a child

C)that occurred when a child

D)that occurred when they were children

)that has occurred as each was a child

The sentence contains an underlined portion which may or may not contain an error. Students are presented with a variety of sentences to choose from with choice A being exactly the same.  There is no need to reread this choice.  The other four choices offer different variations. 

The best way to approach sentence correction is to find which of the broad categories above is being tested in the original sentence.  Once you have figured out which category is being tested, choices almost always split into two groups.   Usually two sentences are very close and a smaller principle will be tested. Thus, we can use a divide and conquer approach.  Statistically, 20% of the time choice A is correct. Here is a summary:

• Read the whole sentence and decide which general category is being tested.  If you can’t see this immediately, scan the answer choices for differences.
• Divide the choices into 2 groups.  Eliminate one group that doesn’t adhere to the rules.
• Pick the best answer between the group that is left.  If you can’t decide, go with the shorter answer.

Technorati Tags: sentence correction