How To Improve In GMAT Sentence Correction: Tips, Tricks, and Strategies

How To Improve sentence correction in GMAT
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GMAT Sentence Correction Cheat Sheet (Tips and Tricks)

Sentence Correction forms a significant portion of the Verbal Reasoning section in the GMAT.  SC accounts for almost 40% of the questions in the Verbal section. Hence it is essential to have a strong understanding of the basics of this topic. GMAT Sentence Correction questions that trouble a lot of aspirants. The questions are tricky, and sometimes the options seem very close. However, the following Sentence Correction tips and tricks will help you improve your accuracy to a great extent.

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Elimination by Syntax and Meaning

The first approach is to rule out the options that have improper grammar and, more importantly, the ones which have incorrect meaning.

The first step is to look for improper use of :

  1. Sentence structure
  2. Subject-verb agreement
  3. Pronouns and nouns

Eliminate the options which have incorrect usage of either of the three. Now we are left with two or three very close options.

The second step is to find the option with the most appropriate meaning. At this stage, you must look at :

  1. Modifiers
  2. Parallelisms
  3. Comparisons
  4. Verb tense, mood, and voice

It is important to note that the options may contain extraneous information not present in the original sentence. These options should also be eliminated.

Let us take a look at an Example to understand this better:

Q) Announced on the first Monday of every month and covering the previous month, the Ministry of Education’s enrollment statistics reveals the amount of students enrolled in schools and universities.

  1. Reveals the amount of students enrolled in schools and universities
  2. Revealed the number of students enrolled in schools and universities
  3. Reveal the amount of students enrolled in both schools and universities
  4. Revealed the amount of students enrolled in schools and universities
  5. Reveal the number of students enrolled in schools and universities

Approach: From step 1, we can eliminate the options which have the noun ‘amount’, as ‘students’ is a countable noun. We can only use ‘amount of’ instead of ‘number of’ when measuring uncountable nouns, such as water or air. Hence options A, C, and D have improper usage of nouns.

From step 2, we can eliminate option B as the tense of the verb (reveal) is incorrect. This is because this sentence involves a universal truth. Any universal truth will always have to be written in the simple present tense. Another example of a universal truth is: The earth revolves around the sun. Writing this in past or future tense is grammatically incorrect.

We are left with option E which is the correct option.

Elimination by Splits

In every Sentence Correction question, there will be options that are of the same kind. They may have similar pronouns, verb tenses, or collective nouns. This strategy aims to club those belonging to the correct structure and then eliminate the option that implies the incorrect meaning.

Hence for this strategy to work, the first step is to correctly identify the places where the sentence splits into multiple options, and note down all the splits provided in the options and eliminate the ones that are incorrect.

Let us look at an Example to see how this works:

Q) The complex arrangement of the human heart, having four chambers and an intricate network of blood vessels, help explain why physicians have theorised that it evolved to optimise blood flow.

  1. Having four chambers and an intricate network of blood vessels, help explain why physicians have
  2. With four chambers and a network of blood vessels, help explain why physicians have
  3. Having four chambers as well as an intricate network of blood vessels helps explain why physicians has
  4. With four chambers and a network of blood vessels, helps explain why physicians have
  5. Having four chambers connected to an intricate network of blood vessels, help explain why physicians have

Approach: The first step is to write down the three splits of the five options

Having four chambers help have
With four chambers help have
Having four chambers helps has
With four chambers helps have
Having four chambers help have

From the first split, it is not possible to eliminate any option. Hence we move on to the second split. Here, the verb ‘help’ and the subject must agree. The subject is the ‘complex arrangement’, which is singular. Hence the verb must also be singular, therefore we can rule out options A, B, and E.

Also, option E has extraneous information which is not mentioned in the original sentence ( ‘connected to’). That leaves us with C and D. The word physicians in option C should be followed by plural ‘have’, and not a singular ‘has’. This eliminates option C and we are left with D which is the correct answer.

Note:

It is recommended that you use both strategies in combination to achieve maximum accuracy. For example, you can classify the options according to the splits and eliminate the ones with improper syntax and then choose the one with proper meaning, or vice versa.

The only way to ace sentence correction is by practising a lot of questions regularly and trying to identify key grammar rules and their clues along with identifying splits and eliminating options based on these splits.

Head over to GMATPoint, which offers Free Daily Tests on GMAT Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning topics, to practice and fine-tune your strategies in Sentence Correction, and other topics of the GMAT.

All the best.

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