I'm currently in the same boat. Native speaker, doing poorly on sentence correction. I have made considerable progress but a ways to go.
Here is what I have done to conquer SC so far:
- I went through the
MGMAT SC book the first time and only took notes. This allowed me to take in the concepts that are tested. Mentally, it let me put a name to a face so to speak, this also allowed me to categorize each question into one of the 8 problem types discussed in the
MGMAT SC book.
- I tried my hand at
OG 11th Edition problems but making sure to
error log every question (right or wrong), as well as writing down details for every question. For the details, besides the time to complete the question and the category of the question I also wrote down whether I got it right/wrong, whether I guessed/knew the answer and finally whether I made a careless mistake or not. This allowed me to narrow down where I needed to focus my attention.
- I went through the
MGMAT SC book again, paying closer attention to weaker spots. I did the problem sets exactly as prescribed, not just spotting the error and fixing it. This allowed me to
work on finding the subject, verb, pronoun, modifier, adverb, and adjective within a sentence. As a native speaker I never really paid much attention to these minute details, I figured I could sound out every problem.
- Some time has passed, my scores have improved. Unfortunately I've hit a road block. I need to be able to do each question in under 2 minutes. Most recommend that you should cross off the wrong answers right away. I was always very slow to commit to an answer. I have started to go through the
MGMAT SC book for the third time, this time going through the problem sets in each chapter and performing the
OG 11th Ed problems the book recommends at the end of every chapter. One of the differences this time around is I'm doing the questions and giving explanations on why the other possible answers are wrong. I've upped the ante and grade myself if my reasoning is right (5 marks total). This has helped me recognize common errors GMAT likes to use in developing their wrong answers. It has given me a bit more confidence in eliminating wrong answer choices.
- I have saved the
OG 12th Ed. and the
OG Verbal 2nd Ed. for my final couple weeks of prep. I will time myself and do these questions for additional practice. Ensuring I
error log my mistakes and compare them to my initial mistakes. I hope to eliminate most of my mistakes but I'll be more curious to see what I'm struggling on with the higher level questions. It is an iterative process. I will try to work on going over the new found mistakes and study the concepts I struggle with.
At this point just going through the
MGMAT SC book, the all mighty bible everyone claims it to be, is useless if you don't change your approach in some way. Kind of like muscle confusion but for the brain.
Hope this helps.