Hi, I was going through the sc databank posted by bigb and came upon Q74 that goes like this:

Unlike their counterparts in other Western democracies, the American labor movement has never embraced revolutionary ideologies calling for the ultimate transformation of the economic order.

(A) Unlike their counterparts in other Western democracies, the America labor movement has never
(B) Unlike that of their counterparts in other Western democracies, the American labor movement never have
(C) Unlike its counterpart in other Western democracies, the American labor movement never have
(D) Unlike that of its counterparts in other Western democracies, the American labor movement never has
(E) Unlike that of its counterpart in other Western democracies, the American labor movement has never

I chose (A) but the answer was (E). I reasoned it this way, correct me if I made a mistake:
(B)and (C) are out because of the 'never have' in the sentence
This leaves me with (A), (D), (E)
(D) is out, the sentence sounded akward with 'never has', so now I'm left with (A) and (E).
I chose (A) since (E) sounds like a long way of saying things. But apparently it is the correct form grammatically.

Any idea how I should go about solving these ?

Also, I need help desperately on SC. When I read a sentence, it doesn't come to me as verbs, nouns...etc I can see the basic idioms, parallel structures, tenses, but questions like the one above always get me stumped. Any idea how to improve on this flaw ?? Also, it's been ages since I get so grammatically correct, and I really can't recall what are things like adjectives and some of the more complicated tenses and when they are appropriate to use. How do I brush up in this area ?

Ywilfred,

I would suggest, you first go thorugh the basic grammar concepts provided in the VERBAL LESSONS Forum. There are couple of links provided by our club members, those links can help you get the basic understanding. When you solve a SC, try to go through each choice and relate with the grammar concepts and see why a particular choice is wrong. Here, at the forum, people do great job in negating wrong answer choices.

And as someobody already mentioned, and as you feel that's your weak area, concentrate only on SCs. I mean, only SCs. Forget about other stuff and start doing SCs at your level best till you begin imbibing the concepts.

this is a good one: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar . I follow this all the time.

PR's stategy to deal with verbal, I found, is the best. Get the gist of what PR has to say on different types. In case you have any doubt, you can discuss it here at our forum. I assure you, you will get stupendous explanations from people from all over the world

Last, but not the least, don't hestitate to ask a question you have in mind. Remember, no question is easy to answer, only the answers are.

My exp:
Books, ofcourse academic, are difficult to read, but you can make the learning fun by relating the concepts with what you are doing. I tell you, you will feel great comfort when you see it working.

I hope this helps.

You can refer to the strategies mentioned in the GMAT section (specifically for SC). Apart from that there are verbal lessons in this site too!

It also depends on when you are targetting to give your GMAT - the more the time, the more you could read up.

A few great sites are
http://www.bartleby.com/64/c001
http://www.webster.commnet.edu/grammar/

Practice will get you where you want!

I will stop here...and wait for gurus (paul & co) to reply