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Welcome to “Land Your Score,” a blog series in which Kaplan instructor Jennifer Land shares key insights and strategies for improving your GMAT performance on Test Day. This week, Jennifer discusses how to solve Sentence Correction problems using the Kaplan Method.
Solving Sentence Correction GMAT problems
Let’s take a look at another Verbal Reasoning question type: Sentence Correction. You will see about 16 of these on Test Day, making them the most common of the three types of Verbal Reasoning questions. Applying the Kaplan Method to Sentence Correction is pretty straightforward:
Step 1. Read the original sentence carefully, looking for errors.
Step 2. Scan and group the answer choices.
Step 3. Eliminate choices until only one remains.
Underlined phrases are key
Here’s a hint to use whenever a Sentence Correction question appears on the screen: Assess the first word in the underlined phrase. The error is often located here, so identifying the role of the first underlined word will often lead you right to the error and, more importantly, the correct answer.
If the first word in the underlined portion is a verb, take a moment to identify its subject. One of the most common GMAT Sentence Correction errors is subject-verb agreement, and often the subject and verb are separated by several words. Here is an example:
A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans.
- have done little to convince its practitioners that they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans
- have done little to convince their practitioners to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
- has done little to convince its practitioners to follow more traditional weight loss plans
- has done little to convince practitioners of these diets to follow more traditional weight-loss plans
- has done little to convince practitioners of these diets they should follow more traditional weight-loss plans
Applying the Kaplan Method
Using Step 1 of the Kaplan Method, we read carefully and try to spot an error. Use the hint I gave you to spot the likely error right away: The first underlined word is a verb, “have.” We need to find that verb’s subject.
As usual, the GMAT has placed distractors in the way. We have a number of unnecessary words before the verb, and this prevents untrained test-takers from spotting the subject without a little work. Let’s break it down, working backward from the underlined portion.
“A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have….” We can rule out “of high-fat diets,” because this is a prepositional phrase, which can never be the subject of a verb. “The long-term health benefits” is a contender, until we continue backward and see “questioning.” Let’s not decide on that part yet. Next we have, “of news reports,” which is another prepositional phrase so cannot be the subject.
Reread the first part again, ignoring the prepositional phrases we’ve ruled out. “A recent spate of news reports questioning the long-term health benefits of high-fat diets have….” Is the subject “a recent spate” or “health benefits”? Tune in next week to finish solving this question!
Want to master the Kaplan Method to earning a higher Verbal Reasoning score on the GMAT? Visit Kaptest.com/gmat to explore our course options.
The post Land Your Score: Sentence Correction Problems, Part 1 appeared first on Business School Insider.
