Sentence Correction RoadMap

Question

Hi, guys! First of all, thank you very much for this endless source of material for the GMAT preparation. Like many others, I am another one dreaming with a decent score to carry on with my professional goals. Since I am new here, I don't know if this particular question was already covered before. At least, I tried to find it on many different websites and also here in the Forum, but I couldn't find it. Is there a comprehensive Roadmap to tackle SC questions? I mean, something covering the basic approach to any SC questions, not an extensive or exhaustive list but something that would guide my knowledge through the sentences. Every time I reveal an answer from a very hard question I have that feeling of "I knew it! Gosh!"

Thank you very much for any help. I hope to contribute to the Forum in a near future too.

saiprasad86 · Answer

I started off from a very low level in verbal. Especially SC. Either u train ur ear or u use ur grammar rules to rules to eliminate options. I would suggest you to focus on meaning, structure and grammer. OG questions and analyze errors in wrong options.

felippemed · Answer

Thanks for the tips!

Probably, something like this

gmatclub. com/forum/all-sc-rules-official-qs-by-experts-legendary-club-members-145563

Especially the content I found in this one right below:

gmatclub. com/forum/comprehensive-sc-guide-106724

Step 1: Look at the underlined portion and try to figure out if there are some really apparent
discrepancies with subject-verb agreement, parallelism, or tense usage.
Step 2: Read the answer choices. The answer choices can generally be split into two or three groups
depending on a common structure.
Step 3: One of the common structures WILL be wrong. Identifying this wrong structure will help you
eliminate two to three choices at once and hence you will be left with two or three other choices.
Step 4: Perform the same splitting action again within this subgroup to determine what the differences
in answer choices are. Once you have identified the change that needs to occur in the original question,
try to correlate that change with the answer choices remaining to pick the best answer.
Step 5: Read the final answer choice you’ve chosen, along with the original question. Make sure to pick
an answer that only modifies what is necessary and no more than what is necessary. You might get
tricked into believing that a change is necessary, but if something reads right in the original question,
there is absolutely no need to change it

This is very very helpful but I was wondering  whether there is a greater breakdown for the step 1   "and try to figure out if there are some really apparent discrepancies with subject-verb agreement, parallelism, or tense usage."

saiprasad86 · Answer

I wouldn't directly go to options. You can do this for easier questions. But for harder questions , dissect the original sentence and try to analyze it first. Try to find what's wrong. Later go to options and eliminate the wrong options.

felippemed · Answer

Thanks again saiprasad86! Quite helpful

I found thoug on Cracking the GMAT book a step-by-step approach that free you to the Logic and Prediction you have mentioned.

As you said, it may be too basic for those who are +700 but works quite well as a technique.

The Princeton Review establishes 8 steps to find any commom error, which I won't reproduce in here but are found on page 276.

it is a sequence
 
- Pronouns
- Misplaced Modifiers
- Parallel construction or comparison
- Tense
- Subject-Verb Agreement
- Idiom
- Quantity Words

They tell us to expand the list for other mistakes once we get use to the cross-checking

Combined with the material available here gmatclub. com/forum/all-sc-rules-official-qs-by-experts-legendary-club-members-145563

"Sorry, I can't post UR L's yet"

I think we can ace almost any SC question.

I wish I could hear more from the experts as well.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Be very careful with these sequences. The only people who have enough time to go through a whole checklist while solving questions on the exam are the ones who don't need to go through a checklist in the first place.

felippemed · Answer

Great insight! Thanks AjiteshArun!

For someone who is climbing his mountain - with some help and plenty of material (such as Jamboree, Magoosh, etc. and some private help) - but is now struggling to obtain better results, which route would you suggest to follow?

- More exercises? (I have completed and reviewed the OG)
- Diagnostic Material and then greater focus on weak areas? (any suggestion of software or course)
- Different approach? (such as the one I gave above?)

My feeling is always the same when I get a wrong answer.  "I knew it!"

AjiteshArun · Answer

If you're looking to improve your RC performance, it will most likely come down to the amount of practice you put in. Even general reading (of good material) helps.

As for SC, you need to practice all the concepts you learn, to the point that you no longer need to actively think about them during an exam. The concepts you mentioned in your post are absolutely fine. Please do study everything there. It's just the "apply these concepts in a sequence" bit that I'm skeptical about.

This (basic) process is not easy, and it usually takes a lot of time (differs person to person though). But I think it's easily the most reliable way to improve.

ccooley · Answer

I agree with this. Strategy for hard SC is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and working to develop with my students. I wouldn't necessarily divide it into hard questions versus easier ones, though. If a question has a short underline, whether it's hard or easy - or if there's an obvious split based on a small number of words - go straight to deciding on that split across all five answer choices. But if the question has a longer underline, or the underline covers a more complex part of the sentence, or if you can't find any great splits, you need a different approach. I've been telling my students to find an 'issue' in the original sentence, regardless of whether it's an error or not. Find something that the GMAT likes, like a modifier, a pronoun, or a tensed verb. Then track that issue across the answer choices, investigating how each of them handles it. Does it eliminate the issue altogether, maybe by restructuring the sentence? Does it approach the issue in the same way, or differently? Then eliminate any answer choice that doesn't handle that issue correctly before moving on to another one (from the first remaining answer choice - since you may have eliminated (A)).

felippemed · Answer

ccooley Thank you very much for your insightful tips and time to reply! Kudos to you! I think now I understand better what you, AjiteshArun and saiprasad86 said: "be careful with your approach to every Sentence Correction". Just now, after moving to harder questions, I understand the importance of the meaning and the sentence comprehension to answer correctly. Right now, grammar comes smoother, and it is applied almost automatically in every SC, that I recognize as the well-known "low-hanging fruit". The thing is, when you start from the scratch on the GMAT prep, you have no idea what comes to you. The easiest questions test you on grammar and the hardest ones on a variety of errors, including grammar. For those who are a newbie - like myself

- , losing easy questions mean that you haven't done your homework, which is not true. Sometimes, it lacks some clearer guidance on how to kill these first little monsters then move to the ugliest ones. I just want to thank you all for taking the time to reply my messages and for building this excellent source of knowledge.

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