1) Make Logic Your Primary Focus<\/strong> If you want to get really technical, it\u2019s an appositive modifier (a noun phrase used to describe another noun), but the GMAT will never require you to describe the grammatical\u00a0 terminology behind it. If you can recognize that \u201cthis is wrong \u2013 logically it doesn\u2019t make sense\u201d, you can eliminate this answer choice and move on.\u00a0 Consider this example, often mistaken by students as incorrect:<\/p>\n In order to break the world record in the 100 meter dash at next summer\u2019s Olympics, Tyson Gay will need to run faster than Usain Bolt ran at the 2009 World Championships.<\/em><\/p>\n Many a GMAT student has looked at a sentence like this and viewed the comparison as incorrect, citing \u201cparallelism\u201d as their primary concern.\u00a0 \u201cYou cannot compare a future tense verb to a past-tense verb\u2026they\u2019re not perfectly parallel!\u201d they\u2019ll claim.\u00a0 But, again, ask yourself about the logic: is there any logical way to put these two actions in the same tense? From where we\u2019re standing today, \u201cnext summer\u2019s Olympics\u201d must be in the future, and 2009 must be in the past.\u00a0 We simply cannot put them in the same verb tense.\u00a0 For comparisons, the two items must be logically comparable, but they need not be perfectly parallel to the umpteenth grammatical degree.\u00a0 This sentence is wrong:<\/p>\n In order to break the world record next summer, Tyson Gay\u2019s time will need to be faster than Usain Bolt at the 2009 worlds.<\/em><\/p>\n Here we are comparing Gay\u2019s time to Bolt, the person, and this isn\u2019t a logical comparison. Remember, logic is your primary goal on these questions, so look for clearly illogical modifiers, sequences, comparisons, etc. and you\u2019ll nearly always be able to avoid having to dig that much deeper for grammatical jargon or expertise.\u00a0 If the words \u201cgerund\u201d and \u201cparticiple\u201d aren\u2019t currently part of your vocabulary, you probably don\u2019t need them to be when you take the test, either.<\/p>\n 2) Recognize Decision Points<\/strong> For example, McDonald\u2019s has a set of core competencies that allow it to run efficient fast-food operations in high-traffic areas.\u00a0 It\u2019s natural, then, to acquire Chipotle and replicate the same processes with a different type of fast food; if McDonald\u2019s were to try to distribute its products through the frozen foods aisles at grocery stores, however, it might find that it is ill-equipped to compete with that different set of core competencies.\u00a0 Businesses specialize, and as a potential Master of Business you should specialize, too.\u00a0 Do not try to memorize everything there is to know about grammar; learn to recognize the common GMAT decision points and you can efficiently make the decisions that you have trained yourself to make effectively.<\/p>\n Verbs make fantastic decision points, as they are involved in subject-verb agreement errors, verb tense errors, and comparison errors (are we comparing an action to an action?).\u00a0 Pronouns also lend themselves well to decisions, as they can disagree in number or they can fail to refer to anything specific.\u00a0 When you look at the answer choices of a sentence and see the same verb in different forms or a choice between singular and plural pronouns, you should immediately identify those as classic decision points and look to make your choices there.\u00a0 Similarly, as comparisons are often tested on the GMAT, the presence of pronouns like \u201cthat of\u201d or \u201cthose of\u201d should indicate that you need to decide whether the comparison requires such a possessive:<\/p>\n The question of whether to allocate a portion of their salaries to retirement plans is particularly troublesome for recent college graduates, whose salaries are typically lower than senior members of companies; with the rising cost of living, younger employees often struggle with having to pay bills while trying to save for the long run.<\/p>\n A) than Here, the presence of \u201cthose of\u201d in B and E should tip you off \u2013 we need to determine whether we are comparing X with Y or something that belongs to X with \u201cthose of\u201d Y.\u00a0 Going back to the sentence, we see that we are comparing \u201csalaries\u201d belonging to recent graduates to\u2026 \u201csenior members of companies\u201d.\u00a0 Which is illogical\u2014 we can\u2019t compare salaries to people; it has to be salaries to \u201cthose of\u201d the other people.\u00a0 So we must have either B or E.\u00a0 E is redundant \u2014 \u201clower\u201d already tells us that we\u2019re comparing, so adding \u201ccompared to\u201d just adds unnecessary words, and so B is the correct answer.<\/p>\n Knowing that \u201cthose of\u201d triggers an important decision point, you can avoid reading most of this sentence \u2013 you know what you\u2019re looking for and you can quickly dive into that decision, saving valuable time for later problems on the test.<\/p>\n 3) Lighten Your Load<\/strong> Originally called BackRub, Google was founded by two Stanford PhD students, Larry Page, whose father, Dr. Carl Victor Page, was a computer science professor at Michigan State University, and Sergey Brin. <\/em><\/p>\n The proper nouns and excessive adjectives can be eliminated or condensed, bringing you down to:<\/p>\n Originally called BackRub, Google was founded by two students, Larry, whose father, Carl, was a professor, and Sergey. <\/em><\/p>\n Now it\u2019s easier to check the modifiers to make sure they\u2019re aptly describing each portion of the sentence.\u00a0 \u201cOriginally called BackRub\u201d can logically modify Google, so we can break off that part of the sentence\u2026 There\u2019s nothing else that can be wrong with that option.<\/p>\n Google was founded by two students, Larry, whose father, Carl, was a professor, and Sergey. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cwhose father\u201d logically modifies \u201cLarry;\u201d \u201cCarl\u201d logically modifies \u201cfather,\u201d and \u201cLarry and Sergey\u201d logically modifies \u201cstudents,\u201d so we can confirm that this sentence is correct.\u00a0 More importantly, as there are four other answer choices that are similarly structured, we can more quickly ascertain the decision points by looking at a shorter sentence, making our work significantly easier and quicker.\u00a0 Again, this relates to a business skill \u2013 if you can identify which items are superfluous and which are the most important opportunities to add value, you can be a much more efficient manager and a more valuable asset.<\/p>\n Sentence Correction may seem a bit out-of-place on a graduate management exam, but that should be a clue to you. Assuming that the GMAT is a well-written test, the inclusion of Sentence Correction must be to test something other than the type of grammar that you can easily fix with a right-click of the green underline in your word processor.\u00a0 Sentence Correction tests your ability to efficiently assess a more-complicated-than-necessary situation, identify your core competencies, and efficiently make decisions that play to your strengths.\u00a0 Use that knowledge and these above strategies and you can demonstrate those abilities to business schools and employers alike.<\/p>\n Ready to sign up for a GMAT course ? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)! Take a look at our course options in some of our most popular cities: New York<\/a>, Chicago <\/a>and Los Angeles<\/a> and make sure to check the Veritas Prep blog<\/a> for daily articles.<\/p>\n
\nThe single-most crucial type of Sentence Correction error, Modifiers, Comparisons, and Verb Tenses all share one thing in common: you do not need to be an expert editor to recognize that this sentence is illogical!\u00a0 The introductory phrase in this sentence, \u201cthe single-most type\u2026\u201d is clearly meant to describe one item, but the rest of the sentence lists three.\u00a0 This does not make logical sense!\u00a0 Technically you\u2019d call this a modifier error, in that the modifying phrase to begin the sentence \u2013 recognizable because it begins the sentence, is separated by a comma, and does not include its own subject and verb (note: these aren\u2019t essential characteristics of any modifier, but they are one surefire way to identify a commonly-occurring type of modifier in which SC errors often crop up) \u2013 does not logically modify the noun that follows.<\/p>\n
\nAs stated above, the pool of required grammar knowledge for the GMAT is likely shallower than you would think; those who memorize hundreds of idiomatic rules or read the cover off of their copy of Strunk & White\u2019s \u201cElements of Style\u201d are studying counter to the real purpose of the GMAT\u2019s inclusion of Sentence Correction: the idea of \u201ccore competencies.\u201d\u00a0 Corporate Strategy courses in business school\u00a0 will spend a lot of time on that notion that each business needs to recognize the handful of things it does extremely well and find opportunities to leverage that.\u00a0 When businesses stray from their core competencies they tend to struggle mightily, wasting resources and providing diminishing returns with increased risk.<\/p>\n
\nB) than those of
\nC) than is so of
\nD) compared to
\nE) compared to those of<\/p>\n
\nSentence Correction questions can include up to 54 words, making for incredibly long sentences and time consuming reading.\u00a0 But similar to point 2, knowing what is likely to be a testable section of a sentence and what is not, you can break apart the sentence into the parts that matter to you as a test-taker.\u00a0 Proper nouns, correctly-applied modifiers, adjectives and adverbs can all be streamlined to make for shorter sentences.\u00a0 For example, in the sentence:<\/p>\n
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