GMAT Ninja SC Expert - Ask Me Anything about GMAT SC and Grammar

Hello Charles,

Can you tell us how to increase Speed and Accuracy in SC ?

OA = E

Hi GMATNinja ,
I have some queries here.

I think there is no problem with "they" as according to parallelism , "they" must refer to mammals only and "to determine" is referring to the purpose for doing.


Is there ellipsis here like :
for determining how (mammals colonized the islands of the West Indies) and when mammals colonized the islands of the West Indies .
Is it right to have ellipsis before it has been stated in a sentence.

Hi GMATNinja,

I have my GMAT exam this Friday. I'm pretty decent at SC, but I tend to make a few silly errors whenever I'm nervous or under time pressure. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do during these last couple of days to ensure I can put in my best for SC. I know I am capable of scoring at least 10 right on SC, but just need to make sure that I am not committing silly mistakes.

P.S. - I am a huge fan of your youtube videos and your posts on GMATClub. They have really helped me up my verbal game and I thought you should know that.

Hello Charles,

Good Morning. Could you please explain the options for the Q below :
https://gmatclub.com/forum/traffic-safe ... 15768.html

PS : I am sure the explanations are amazing there , but still missing your style of comparison explanations .

Superb initiative, sire!

Hi Charles,

Thank you so much for doing this. I do have a question and I am hoping that you will be able to give me some tips.

When I am doing practice questions of SC, things are usually fine. I can easily spot a split or an error and eliminate the wrong choices easily. However, when I am doing the real GMAT, questions seem much harder for me and it takes me way longer to do so. And most of the time, I don't even think I choose the right answer.

TL;DR, the real GMAT SC questions feel much harder than the practice or OG ones.

How can I improve this? Considering that I have done OG & Verbal twice and gone through all questions. I think most of the real GMAT questions are more about the meaning issues instead of the grammar issues.... I am still stuck at V28 and it really drags my total score down

Thank you again!

https://gmatclub.com/forum/rather-like- ... l#p2166429

Can u please help with option d? here should who not be whom .

here subject of verb shares is he i.e Mcbain so whom must be referring to object McCain.

Hi GMAT Ninja,

Please explain the difference in usage of WHICH and THAT. I am really struggling with it.

Hi GMATNinja,

I have a query on Parallel construction with "not only... but also..." in the following question from GMAT Club Grammar book:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/german-engin ... 43521.html


In the above question/link, the OA is E which when replaced in the original sentence would read the following: German engineered cars are not only fast but also of precision quality.

I do realize, that among the options given, it might be the best option to pick, but for my understanding, wanted to confirm if this is the correct usage in the above sentence? I read in the same GC Grammar book that "not only" and "but also" connect the same elements of speech, i.e. connect a noun to a noun, an adverb to an adverb, a prepositional phrase to another prepositional phrase. So, according to that logic, fast is an adverb (correct me if I am wrong) and of precision quality is a prepositional phrase (correct me if I am wrong). So how would the correct usage in this case look like?

Thanks in advance!
nkin

Hi, I know that I am not GMAT Ninja, but I happened to be studying about this a few days ago and thought my notes could help you!

To understand the usage of Which and That, you first need to understand restrictive clauses and non-restrictive clauses.

Restrictive Clauses:
1. CANNOT be omitted from the sentence without changing the meaning.
2. are always vital modifiers.
3. Not separated from the sentence.
4. Who, which and THAT can be used.

Non-Restrictive Clauses:
1. Can be omitted from the sentence without changing the meaning.
2. Are always non-vital modifiers.
3. Separated from the sentence with the comma.
4. Who, which, and who can be used. But THAT CANNOT be used.

For example,
The guy who is giving the speech on the stage is my dad.
This is a restrictive clause because
1. "Who..." is not separated from the sentence.
2. If "who.." were removed, the meaning of the sentence would be affected. (The guy who is giving the speech on the stage is my dad is still correct grammatically, but the meaning is different)

Jason, who's traveling in Japan now, is going to college next month.
This is a non-restrictive clause because
1. The "who..." modifier is separated from the sentence by commas.
2. If "who..." were removed, the meaning of the sentence stays the same. (Jason, who's traveling in Japan now,is going to college next month.)

Basically, "Which" could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence and be separated by commas. "That", if removed, will change the meaning of the sentence, and "THAT", when used as a modifier, should not be separated by commas.


*I mentioned vital & non-vital modifier is to establish that vital noun modifier can come between a noun and non-vital modifier.
This is why sometimes the antecedent of the relative pronoun clause isn’t the immediate noun or noun phrase, because the noun was followed by a Vital Noun Modifier.
I killed the snake with scales, which lived in the burrow behind my house.
Since “with scales” cannot be moved elsewhere and it doesn’t cause ambiguity in meaning, we know that “which” modifies the snake.

Hope this helps x

Hi Ninja,

I have 2 doubts on usage of "that" and "including".

Can those 2 words jump a preceding prepositional phrase to refer a Noun ?

Posted from my mobile device

Turkish -- and anybody else who has this same question -- I've added some links to the original post above. To be honest, there's no easy answer to the epic question you just asked, but those links are about the best we can do in a forum post or a video. I hope they help a bit!

Thank you so much for the kind words, nithinjohn!

And I feel terrible for answering this so slowly, since your test presumably happened earlier today. For whatever it's worth: it sounds like your issue isn't really how "good" you are fundamentally at SC. It sounds like you know what you're doing. And as much as anything, you just need to stick to your technique, trust your knowledge and training, and be supremely calm and methodical as you execute your process of elimination.

You might also want to check out this chat transcript about test anxiety. You're absolutely not alone in struggling with nerves during the exam.

I hope that things went wonderfully for you today!

For starters, you definitely don't ever want to accept a non-official question as an authority on the GMAT's treatment of grammar. You know that I love the fine people who wrote that GMAT Club grammar book, but please always take the examples with a huge grain of salt. (And yes, I've written a few questions for the GMAT Club tests. Please take those with a huge grain of salt, too.)

For whatever it's worth, "fast" is describing "German-engineered cars" in this particular case, so it's an adjective. The phrase "of precision quality" is a prepositional phrase, but it's also modifying the noun "German-engineered cars." So both "fast" and "of precision quality" are adjectival modifiers, and in this case, they're also acting as subject complements (if you have no idea what a "subject complement" is, please disregard that last phrase -- it really isn't important).

I can't think of any official GMAT sentences that use an adjective ("fast") and a prepositional phrase ("of precision quality") in the same parallel construction, but you could argue that it's OK here, because they're both modifying the same noun.

But again: I can't really point to any official GMAT questions that look anything like this one. So don't worry about it too much.

I hope this helps!

Hi Gmatninza,

After reading so many rules and tricks,Still not quite comfortable with solving SC.
What’s the right approach for SC Questions and how to build a strong foundation for solving SC?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi GMAT Ninja,

Some bat caves, like honeybee hives, have residents that take on different duties such as defending the entrance, acting as sentinels and to sound a warning at the approach of danger, and scouting outside the cave for new food and roosting sites.

(A) acting as sentinels and to sound

(B) acting as sentinels and sounding

(C) to act as sentinels and sound

(D) to act as sentinels and to sound

(E) to act as a sentinel sounding

This question's OA is B. My question is what "sounding" functions as? It can't be the parallelism of "acting" and " scouting" because of 2 "and" preceded "sounding" and "scouting". Therefore it must be a noun and parallel with "sentinels".

Hello GMATNinja

Can you please help in explaining this Question

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-computer ... ml#p311738

How is E better than C?

Thanks