Finding SC extremely difficult

Question

Hi all,

I have thoroughly read and understood Manhattan SC guide along with Aristotle SC guide and even after that I am failing to point out errors in SC questions.

Please suggest how to go about it

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Aanchal, if you do have conceptual clarity, then it's all about  applying  those concepts.

Focused assignments and practice questions should enable you to bridge this gap.

m1033512 · Answer

In fact I am also having same problem with SC.

The concepts are just not ending .

I have also gone throught the Manhattan SC and aristotle SC but still feel least confident .

Every question brings a new concept

Posted from my mobile device

a1997g · Answer

I have been through all concepts properly , but there are so many of them when it comes to applying those or finding out the fallacies , i fail.

cfc198 · Answer

SC can be a real pain and the guides may not always work for everyone. Try giving e-gmat a shot, the content won't be anything different but their analytics will help a lot.

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Aanchal, the thing is that you might have learnt 100 concepts (or may be even 200); but the good thing is that a given question would only test a  subset  of these concepts (maximum of 3-4 out of these concepts) at a time. So, you  don't  have to start with concept #1 and run thru concept #200 for every sentence.

Your ability to do well in SC depends on your ability to figure out  which  concepts (out of the 100-200 concepts that you might have learnt) are being tested in the current question at hand.

Understanding the intended meaning of the sentence and then, doing a  vertical scan  of the options enables you to quickly figure out the concepts being tested. You can then keep  splitting  the options based on those concepts, to ultimately arrive at the right answer.

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi Aanchalgupta2917,

Here is some advice you can follow to improve your Sentence Correction skills.

There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. Furthermore, the likely reason that your Sentence Correction performance has not improved is that you have not been working on all three of those aspects. 
 
Regarding what you know, to be successful in Sentence Correction, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not just a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey meanings that make sense. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice repeatedly until you start to see the differences between the choices that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to put in the necessary time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

Feel free to reach out with further questions.

Good luck!

Mallika7 · Answer

Try solving questions level wise. Filter out for certain errors and then solve the questions relating to that error.

Posted from my mobile device

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi,
It’s sad to hear that you are not able to solve the SC questions even after putting in so much effort. This can happen when you fail to see the right area to focus on. Let me share a few insights on the same.

The possible reason behind the struggle: 
It is likely that you are approaching the SC questions from a grammar perspective. This is what most students do in their initial stages of preparation. I agree that knowing grammatical rules is important but that is not what GMAT SC tests. The purpose of SC on GMAT is to test whether you are able to convey the right meaning without any ambiguity. So, it is the meaning which you have to focus on.

What can be done! 
Let me tell you, there are a few answer choices which have no grammatical errors. But they do convey a logical meaning. They might convey their own meaning but as long as it is different from the intended one, it has to be eliminated. So, by now you must have understood that you have to approach the SC questions from meaning stand-point. It is not something you can inculcate in a day or two. This takes a lot of effort. You have to shed your old practice and then start applying the new one. You might take a little more time in the initial stages to solve the question but that shouldn’t be a major concern.

So, I recommend you to use a standard resource which teaches you how to read a sentence in the right way. To read the sentence in the right way, you need to break the sentence at the right intervals. And there are a few strategies using which you can eliminate the answer choices. Learning the concepts such as Subject-verb pair, Noun-pronoun pair, modifiers etc helps you identify the grammatical errors and eliminate the incorrect answer choices. So, the learning has to be in a structured manner.

If you are open to suggestions, I would recommend you to check the Verbal course of GMATWhiz. GMATWhiz has a unique way of teaching the Verbal part. The unit 1 of every module starts with the focus on strategy. The next units deal with individual topics and teach you by following the 3 steps.
  Teaches you the concepts. 
 Teaches you the methodology required to solve GMAT like questions 
 Let’s you take practice quizzes and thereby analyse your weaknesses and work on them.

It comes with real-time improvement modules after finishing a particular concept.

You can check the free trail of GMATWhiz and decide whether it is suitable for you or not. Hope it helped. If you still wish to know more about how to improve, you can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.

Click here to access

Finding SC extremely difficult

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