Hi Larbi,
I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. For off, a 670 is a solid starting point. That being said, I’m happy to provide some advice on how to improve your Sentence Correction skills.
There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions. Those three aspects are 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. In order 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, and your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine whether an answer choice creates a sentence that makes sense in context.
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and make sense is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. Likely, the main reason that Sentence Correction has not "clicked" for you is that you have not put enough work into developing your skill in seeing what is going on in the various versions of the sentence created by the answer choices. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending under two minutes per question. For a while, you will 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 that is conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does it make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does it really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do the pronouns in the sentence clearly refer to nouns in the sentence? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you can learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer is correct.
There is only one correct answer to any well-written Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and those reasons are not that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct answer often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answer were always the one that merely 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.
Finally, let's discuss what you have to do in order to get Sentence Correction questions correct. The main thing that you have to do is to 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 of them wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices in a Sentence Correction question, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. It may take time for you to see what you have to see. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to be determined to see the differences and to figure out which choice is actually 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 that resulted in your arriving at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Practice Sentence Correction by seeing how many questions you can get correct in a row. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could have done differently that would have resulted in your extending your streak. After learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. If you are unable to train in such a way, then perhaps you need to consider adjusting your study routine.
Lastly, you may find my Poets & Quants article helpful regarding
how to improve in GMAT verbal.
If you have any further questions, please reach out.
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11 Aug 2018, 16:49
). We have this habit of going for an option which looks/ sounds good but take a pause and try to infer what the intended meaning is before hitting the submit button.
