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	<title>parallelism &#8211; GMAT</title>
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		<title>Top 10 Tips for GMAT Sentence Correction</title>
		<link>https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-sentence-correction-tips/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Chelsey Cooley]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2019 21:19:41 +0000</pubDate>
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					<description><![CDATA[<p>GMAT Sentence Correction is all about grammar, but not every grammar rule is equally important. With these Sentence Correction tips, we’ll look at some of the most important—and most often overlooked—Sentence Correction techniques. 10. Worry about the small stuff. Sometimes, the most important words in a GMAT Sentence Correction problem are the smallest ones: Pronouns [&#8230;]</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-sentence-correction-tips/">Top 10 Tips for GMAT Sentence Correction</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
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										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-16932" src="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2019/02/gmat-sentence-correction-tips.png" alt="Manhattan Prep GMAT Blog - Top 10 Tips for GMAT Sentence Correction by Chelsey Cooley" width="1200" height="628" srcset="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2019/02/gmat-sentence-correction-tips.png 1200w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2019/02/gmat-sentence-correction-tips-300x157.png 300w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2019/02/gmat-sentence-correction-tips-768x402.png 768w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2019/02/gmat-sentence-correction-tips-1024x536.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">GMAT Sentence Correction is all about grammar, but not every grammar rule is equally important. With these Sentence Correction tips, we’ll look at some of the most important—and most often overlooked—Sentence Correction techniques.</span><span id="more-16877"></span></p>
<h4><b>10. Worry about the small stuff.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sometimes, the most important words in a GMAT Sentence Correction problem are the smallest ones: </span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-grammar-pronoun-rules/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pronouns</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (it, its, they, them, their)</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prepositions (in, for, with, after)</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-grammar-weekly-fanboys/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conjunctions</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (and, or)</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Helping verbs (have, had, are, is, will be)</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A tough Sentence Correction problem might test a couple of complex grammar issues—such as modifiers and parallelism—in complicated ways. That same sentence might </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">also</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> test a small, simple issue, like using the correct pronoun or conjunction. If you focus on the tough issues, you could spend two minutes choosing the right answer. But if you spot the critical difference in a single, tiny word, you could sail through the problem in under a minute.</span></p>
<h4><b>9. Parallelism: work from the end to the beginning.</b></h4>
<p><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/whats-parallel-to-what-parallelism-and-meaning-in-gmatprep/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The term “parallelism” refers to GMAT Sentence Correction rules that deal with lists</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. For instance, this sentence is parallel:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’m going to eat kale, drink a smoothie, and take my vitamins. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The best trick for parallelism is to start at the </span><b>end of the list</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, not the beginning. Find the </span><b>parallel marker—</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">the word that tells you there’s a list in the sentence, such as “and” or “or.” In this sentence, it’s the word “and.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once you find the parallel marker, look immediately to the right of it. That’s where you’ll find the last thing on the list! In this case, it’s “take my vitamins.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For a sentence to have good parallelism, everything on the list needs to look alike, grammatically speaking. Since we already know that “take my vitamins” is one of the things on the list, we just need to make sure that everything else on the list looks similar to it.  </span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">eat kale</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">drink a smoothie</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">take my vitamins</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All of those are phrases about VERBing a NOUN, so they all look alike. That’s a good list! Here’s a sentence with a not-so-good list: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’m going to eat kale, chickpeas, broccoli, and drink apple juice.  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Using the rule we learned earlier, the last thing on the list is “drink apple juice.” Everything else on the list has to have that same verb-noun structure. But in this sentence, that’s not the case. Only “eat kale” matches, while “broccoli” and “chickpeas” are lonely nouns, stuck all by themselves.  </span></p>
<h4><b>8. Stop searching for the perfect sentence.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The right answer to a GMAT Sentence Correction problem will often “sound wrong.” When you get right down to it, a lot of sentences on the GMAT are just plain weird. We’re seeing these sentences totally out of context, and they deal with topics that we probably know nothing about. </span><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-sentence-correction-tests-good-grammar-not-good-writing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plus, they’re </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">designed</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to be long, complicated, and not incredibly good at getting the point across</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you go into a Sentence Correction problem looking for the perfect sentence, you’ll be disappointed. </span><b>It’s always better to eliminate wrong answers than to search for the right answer.</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> After all, to prove that an answer is wrong, you only need to find </span><b>one</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> thing wrong with it. To prove that an answer is right, the whole thing has to be correct, all the way through. Plus, for every grammar error, there are a dozen different ways that it could be fixed. If there’s an error in one sentence, you don’t necessarily know what the “right” version will look like! The right answer can sometimes surprise you. </span></p>
<h4><b>7. Stuck between two answer choices? Focus on the differences.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is a common issue on Verbal problems, and </span><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-verbal-getting-right-last-two/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">we’ve written about it before</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">! If you’re stuck between two Sentence Correction answer choices, </span><b>zero in on the differences between them</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, instead of just reading them one at a time. One of those two answer choices has to be wrong, so at least one of the differences must tell you something helpful. Pick the difference you’re most confident about, and go for it.</span></p>
<h4><b>6. Still stuck? You might be missing a meaning issue.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you focus on the differences between two answer choices, you could see a grammar error that you didn’t notice before. If you </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">don’t </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">see a grammar error, it’s also possible that the two answer choices have different meanings. <a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/whats-tested-on-gmat-verbal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sentence Correction doesn’t just test grammar rules—it tests your knowledge of the way that grammar determines a sentence’s meaning</a>.  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If one of the answer choices has a meaning that doesn’t make logical sense, or if it seems like it could mean two different things, eliminate it. But what if both meanings seem reasonable? You’ll rarely get to this point, but if you do, go with the meaning that’s closer to the original sentence.</span></p>
<h4><b>5. Don’t forget the rest of the sentence.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don’t focus too much on just the underlined section. If you do that, you’ll miss all kinds of interesting grammar rules. Here are two answer choices from an imaginary Sentence Correction problem:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) and to prepare a memorandum describing the charitable activities undertaken by the company.<br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(B) and that a memorandum describing the company’s charitable activities be prepared.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Without looking at the whole sentence, neither one of these looks wrong, although there are a couple of differences. You might eliminate (B) because it uses the passive voice, or you could eliminate (A) because it uses the wordy phrase “undertaken by the company.” In both cases, you’d be missing something crucial. Here are those answer choices in context: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The CEO requested that managers become more cognizant of the relationship between the company and the surrounding community, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><u>and to prepare a memorandum describing the charitable activities undertaken by the company.</u></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) and to prepare a memorandum describing the charitable activities undertaken by the company.<br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(B) and that a memorandum describing the company’s charitable activities be prepared.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In context, only (B) can be correct! It gives you something that’s parallel to the first half of the sentence, while (A) is mismatched. If you eliminated it just because it used the passive voice—without checking the rest of the sentence—you would have missed that.</span></p>
<h4><b>4. Think, but don’t overthink.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you read a tough sentence in a book or a news article, you probably don’t even notice anything out of the ordinary, unless it’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">really</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> complicated. But when you see that same sentence in a GMAT Sentence Correction problem, when the clock is ticking and you’re under pressure to choose the right answer, it suddenly seems incomprehensible.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To keep this from ruining your Sentence Correction flow, follow these steps:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Glance at the answer choices </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">before</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> you read the original sentence. You’re not doing a full analysis—you just want to avoid missing any really obvious hints in the answers. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Take a breath. Your brain needs oxygen, and you need a second to center yourself. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Read the entire sentence, beginning to end, exactly how you’d read it if you saw it in a magazine article. All you’re trying to do is “get” what it’s saying—not correct its grammar or identify its clauses. Just read, in a calm, relaxed manner.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don’t try to do too much at once! If you try to figure out every detail of the grammar of a sentence while also reading it for the first time, you’ll overwhelm and confuse yourself. It’s fine to read the sentence once just to get your head around it, then worry about the grammar afterwards. For more on the Sentence Correction process, check out our </span><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/store/strategy-guides/sentence-correction/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sentence Correction Strategy Guide</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<h4><b>3. Use the best split, not the first split.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">GMAT instructor Ryan Jacobs </span><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-sentence-correction-easy-decisions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">already summed this one up</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">! In a Sentence Correction problem, the answer choices will usually be different from each other in </span><b>multiple ways</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Some of those ways will be important, and others won’t. Some will be obvious, and others will be subtle. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don’t get hung up on the very first difference you see. If you don’t know the rule now, you’re not going to remember it within the next 80 seconds (that’s how long you have to do an average Sentence Correction problem). Instead, go searching for another rule that you </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">do</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> know.</span></p>
<h4><b>2. Know what to ignore on GMAT Sentence Correction.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The key to solving a Sentence Correction problem can be anywhere in the sentence. However, there are times when you should ignore part of the sentence. </span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re having trouble figuring out what the sentence is saying, try ignoring the modifiers and finding just the main subject(s) and verb(s). Then, mentally add the modifiers back in, one at a time. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If a verb changes between singular and plural across the different answer choices, start by finding the subject that goes with that verb. The subject is the only thing that determines whether a verb should be singular or plural.  </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ignoring adjectives and adverbs is often safe and can make a long, wordy sentence easier. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Try summarizing jargon-y parts of the sentence in your own words or simplifying names and titles. Instead of “employees of a Fortune 500 corporation,” think “workers.” Instead of “the most valuable approach to solving any problem,” think “the best approach.”</span></li>
</ul>
<h4><b>1. Don’t use a new rule when an old rule will do.</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The number-one mistake that students make while studying for GMAT Sentence Correction is being overly specific. For an example, let’s return to that problem from tip number 5:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The CEO requested that managers become more cognizant of the relationship between the company and the surrounding community, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><u>and to prepare a memorandum describing the charitable activities undertaken by the company.</u></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) and to prepare a memorandum describing the charitable activities undertaken by the company.<br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(B) and that a memorandum describing the company’s charitable activities be prepared.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Suppose that you just got this problem wrong and you wanted to review. The </span><b>wrong</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> thing to write in your problem log would be this: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“that a memorandum… be prepared” is right; “to prepare a memorandum” is wrong.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s a slightly better takeaway, but this one </span><b>still isn’t perfect</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“that managers become more cognizant” is parallel to “that a memorandum be prepared.”  </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Those takeaways </span><b>aren’t memorable</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and they </span><b>won’t help you on other problems</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">—unless you just so happen to see a problem about memos and managers on test day. Instead of these takeaways, think of a takeaway that will make you more likely to do the right thing on test day:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“and” plus verbs in different forms (“to prepare”, “that… be prepared”) tells you to look for parallelism with the first half of the sentence!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The key to improving your Sentence Correction game is taking what you learn from one sentence and applying it to other ones. It takes some time, but when you review, you should try boiling down every issue in a problem into a simple, general rule. Every sentence you see on test day will be brand-new—but the rules will be exactly the same as the ones you’ve studied. Learn to focus on those rules, and you’ll set yourself up to succeed. ?</span></p>
<hr />
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<p><b><i><em><strong><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/instructors/chelsey-cooley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chelsey Cooley</a><a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/instructors/chelsey-cooley/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgre%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=CooleyBioGREBlog&#038;utm_campaign=GRE%20Blog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img decoding="async" class="alignleft" title="Chelsey Cooley Manhattan Prep GRE Instructor" src="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gre/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/11/chelsey-cooley-150x150.jpg" alt="Chelsey Cooley Manhattan Prep GRE Instructor" width="150" height="150" data-pagespeed-url-hash="1615980074" data-pagespeed-onload="pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);" data-pagespeed-loaded="1" /></a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington.</strong> </em></i></b><i><em>Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170/170 on the GRE. </em></i><i><em><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/classes/#instructor/336" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here</a>.</em></i></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/gmat-sentence-correction-tips/">Top 10 Tips for GMAT Sentence Correction</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
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		<title>A “Good Ear” isn’t Good Enough on GMAT Sentence Correction</title>
		<link>https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/a-good-ear-isnt-good-enough-on-gmat-sentence-correction/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Céilidh Erickson]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:47:17 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[For Current Studiers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GMAT Prep]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sentence Correction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Verbal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gmat sentence correction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Logical Comparisons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Modifiers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parallelism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pronoun Agreement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subject verb agreement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Using Your Ear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Verb Tenses]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/?p=11100</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. If you’re anything like me, you read books and articles avidly (although maybe less often than you did in college), and you’ve been told that [&#8230;]</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/a-good-ear-isnt-good-enough-on-gmat-sentence-correction/">A “Good Ear” isn’t Good Enough on GMAT Sentence Correction</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
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<p><strong><em>Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We’re not kidding! <a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/classes/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgmat%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=GMAT%20Complete%20Courses%20Plug&#038;utm_campaign=GMAT%20Blog">Check out our upcoming courses here</a>.</em></strong></p>
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<p>If you’re anything like me, you read books and articles avidly (although maybe less often than you did in college), and you’ve been told that you’re a good writer (although you <em>definitely </em>write less than you did in college). The Sentence Correction portion of GMAT Verbal seems like it should be easy for you: fix anything that sounds like bad writing, and you’ll do well here.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that assumption is wrong.<span id="more-11100"></span></p>
<p>You might think that if your Verbal percentage is high on your first practice test, you don’t need to learn a lot of grammar rules. Your time would be better spent memorizing geometry or practicing exponents. For one thing, focusing on your <a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2016/02/11/heres-why-you-may-be-misinterpreting-your-gmat-score/" target="_blank">percentile rather than your raw score is a fallacy</a>. For another, neglecting grammar rules means leaving &#8220;getable&#8221; points on the table.</p>
<p>The GMAT has clever ways of messing with students who don’t bother to learn grammar, and who just rely on their ears…</p>
<p><strong>Things that “sound fine” may be wrong.</strong></p>
<p>The GMAT knows which grammatical errors the average ear won’t pick up. Take a look at this sentence from a GMATPrep® problem, and ask yourself how it sounds:</p>
<p><em>Both weakened by concern about the government’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund and by growing fears of a rise in inflation, the country’s currency continued its slide to a record low against the dollar, which forced the central bank to intervene for the fourth time in a week. </em></p>
<p>You might think, “it sounds wordy, and the ‘slide to a record low’ sounded a bit weird, but the rest sounded fine.” If so, you were distracted by non-issues, and you missed two of the GMAT’s favorite traps!</p>
<ol>
<li>In a parallel structure with <em>both X and Y</em>, the X and Y portions must be in <em>exactly</em> the same format. If the meaning is clear enough, your ear will not hear the mixups in the structure. Look at what comes directly after <em>both</em> and what comes directly after <em>and</em>:</li>
</ol>
<p><em>Both <strong>weakened </strong>by concern about the government’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund and <strong>by </strong>growing fears of a rise in inflation, the country’s currency continued its slide to a record low against the dollar, which forced the central bank to intervene for the fourth time in a week.</em></p>
<p>This structure is not parallel. A right answer would have said “<em>Weakened both by… and by…”</em> or “<em>Both weakened by… and weakened by…”</em></p>
<p>You need to know <em>exact</em> rules of parallelism!</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>The modifier starting with “<em>which</em>” is not correct here. This is one that your ear is unlikely to catch, because we’re almost all guilty of using “which” incorrectly in colloquial English: “I’m a good reader, which means I should do well on SC.” That’s incorrect grammar <em>and</em> incorrect logic!</li>
</ol>
<p>A dependent clause starting with “which” should refer to the NOUN that comes directly before it. In our example sentence, the structure “… <em>against the dollar, which forced the central bank to intervene</em>…” implies that the <em>dollar</em> forced the bank to intervene. If we want to express that the ACTION of the currency sliding is what’s causing the bank to intervene, we can’t use “<em>which</em>.”</p>
<p>The grammatically correct way to express this is to use an ADVERBIAL modifier, such as a present participle: “… <em>against the dollar<strong>, forcing</strong> the central bank to intervene</em>…”</p>
<p>You need to know the grammatical difference between noun modifiers and adverbial modifiers.</p>
<p><strong>Things that “sound bad” may be right.</strong></p>
<p>On the flip side, the GMAT also knows that most students have a hard time distinguishing between sentences that are grammatically incorrect and those that are correct but awkward in style. You will see archaic or convoluted structures, and be tempted to cross them out. Make sure you’re only eliminating sentences that violate real grammar rules, or that have illogical meaning!</p>
<p>Consider this GMATPrep® sentence:</p>
<p><em><u>The bones of </u></em><u><em>Majunatholusatopus, a meat-eating dinosaur that is a distant relative of Tyrannosaurus rex</em> <em>and closely resembles South American predatory dinosaurs, have been discovered in Madagascar.</em></u></p>
<p>“Nope! That sounds terrible,” you might think. You’re not wrong – it does sounds terrible! Any decent high school English teacher would have made you edit and rearrange this sentence if you had written it in a paper.</p>
<p>I have frustrating news for you, though… this was the <em>correct</em> answer on this problem. There is nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence! The “have” sounds awkward because it’s so far removed from its subject, but the subject is “bones,” so “have” is perfectly correct.</p>
<p>Your task is not to ask yourself “what’s the best possible version of this sentence? How would I have written it?” That ideal sentence may not be there in the answer choices.</p>
<p>Instead, ask yourself: does this sentence violate any grammar rules that I know? Or is it illogical in meaning? If the answer to those questions is “no,” then don’t eliminate that answer choice.</p>
<p><strong>Studying grammar isn’t as bad as you think</strong>.</p>
<p>Most of us hated studying grammar in high school, because it seemed nit-picky, and the list of rules seemed endless. The good news about the GMAT, though, is that there is a much shorter list of rules tested, and most of these rules involved logical meaning as well as structure.</p>
<p>These are the most commonly tested rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>parallelism</strong> of lists: <em>either X or Y</em></li>
<li><strong>logical comparisons</strong>: <em>X more than Y</em></li>
<li><strong>modifier</strong> <strong>usage</strong>: are we modifying the correct thing in a logical way?</li>
<li><strong>subject/verb agreement</strong>: singular noun + singular verb, plural noun + plural verb</li>
<li><strong>pronoun agreement</strong>: a pronoun should agree with (and make sense with) the noun that it replaces</li>
<li><strong>verb tenses</strong>: it should be clear when an action is taking place</li>
</ul>
<p>If you master the fine points of these rules and when to recognize them, you’ll gain far more points on SC than you would if you just relied on your ear!</p>
<p>* GMATPrep® questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Want full access to Céilidh&#8217;s trove of GMAT knowledge? Try the first class of one of <a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/classes/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgmat%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=Ceilidh%20Erickson%20InstruCeilidh%20Erickson%20Upcoming%20GMAT%20Courses%20Plug&#038;utm_campaign=GMAT%20Blog#instructor/276">her upcoming GMAT courses</a> absolutely free, no strings attached. </strong></p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/instructors/ceilidh-erickson/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgmat%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=Ceilidh%20Erickson%20Instructor%20Bio&#038;utm_campaign=GMAT%20Blog" target="_blank"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-10992 size-thumbnail" title="Ceilidh Erickson Manhattan Prep GMAT Instructor" src="//d27gmszdzgfpo3.cloudfront.net/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2016/02/ceilidh-erickson-150x150.png" alt="ceilidh-erickson-Manhattan-Prep-GMAT-Instructor" width="150" height="150" /></a><em><strong><a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/instructors/ceilidh-erickson/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgmat%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=Ceilidh%20Erickson%20Instructor%20Bio&#038;utm_campaign=GMAT%20Blog" target="_blank">Céilidh Erickson</a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based on New York City.</strong> When she tells people that her name is pronounced “kay-lee,” she often gets puzzled looks. Céilidh is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in comparative literature. After graduation, tutoring was always the job that bought her the greatest joy and challenge, so she decided to make it her full-time job. Check out <a href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/classes/?utm_source=manhattanprep.com%2Fgmat%2Fblog&#038;utm_medium=blog&#038;utm_content=Ceilidh%20Erickson%20InstruCeilidh%20Erickson%20Upcoming%20GMAT%20Courses%20Plug&#038;utm_campaign=GMAT%20Blog#instructor/276" target="_blank">Céilidh’s upcoming GMAT courses</a> (she scored a 760, so you’re in great hands).</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/a-good-ear-isnt-good-enough-on-gmat-sentence-correction/">A “Good Ear” isn’t Good Enough on GMAT Sentence Correction</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
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		<title>What&#8217;s Parallel to What? Parallelism and Meaning in GMATPrep</title>
		<link>https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/whats-parallel-to-what-parallelism-and-meaning-in-gmatprep/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stacey Koprince]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:26:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Verbal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parallelism]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/?p=5058</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>The first time I read the original sentence in the below SC problem, I thought to myself: wait, what? What are you actually trying to say? I knew immediately that this would be a good one to discuss with all of you. 🙂 Let&#8217;s try it out (1 minute 15 seconds) and then we&#8217;ll dive [&#8230;]</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/whats-parallel-to-what-parallelism-and-meaning-in-gmatprep/">What&#8217;s Parallel to What? Parallelism and Meaning in GMATPrep</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The first time I read the original sentence in the below SC problem, I thought to myself: wait, what? What are you actually trying to say?<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="margin: 5px;padding: 0px;border: 0px" src="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2013/02/istock-000019681094xsmall.jpg" alt="gmat parallelism" width="239" height="321" align="right" /> I knew immediately that this would be a good one to discuss with all of you. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s try it out (1 minute 15 seconds) and then we&#8217;ll dive in. This question is from the free problem set included in the new GMATPrep 2.0 version of the software.</p>
<blockquote><p>*  Displays of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, can heat the atmosphere over the arctic enough <span style="text-decoration: underline">to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce</span> electric currents that can cause blackouts in some areas and corrosion in north-south pipelines.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(A) to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce</p>
<p>(B) that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected, induce</p>
<p>(C) that it affects the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induces</p>
<p>(D) that the trajectories of ballistic missiles are affected and induces</p>
<p>(E) to affect the trajectories of ballistic missiles and induce</p></blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>This was my thought process as I read that first sentence:</p>
<p><span id="more-5058"></span></p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241">
<p align="center"><strong>Text</strong></p>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="349">
<p align="center"><strong>Thoughts</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241">Displays of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, can heat</td>
<td valign="top" width="349">Core sentence: displays can heat</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241">the atmosphere over the arctic enough <span style="text-decoration: underline">to affect</span></td>
<td valign="top" width="349">underline just started; why here?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241"><span style="text-decoration: underline">the trajectories of ballistic missiles, induce</span></td>
<td valign="top" width="349">Ah, parallelism! It&#8217;s a list. <em>To affect</em>, (to) <em>induce</em> so I&#8217;m looking for an and followed by a third infinitive verb.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241">electric currents that can cause blackouts in some areas and</td>
<td valign="top" width="349">Great, here&#8217;s the and</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241">corrosion in north-south pipelines</td>
<td valign="top" width="349">Huh? Okay, <em>corrosion</em> clearly doesn&#8217;t fit with the first two “ it&#8217;s not an infinitive verb</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="241"></td>
<td valign="top" width="349">Now I&#8217;m confused about the basic meaning. The northern lights affect missile trajectories, induce currents and <span style="text-decoration: underline">cause</span> corrosion? Is that what they&#8217;re trying to say but they didn&#8217;t put the verb in? Something seems weird. The first two are verbs “ and we do need a verb to follow <em>heat the atmosphere enough to</em> do something else but the third one is a noun and I can&#8217;t change it. It&#8217;s not underlined.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>Right about now, I noticed something that changed my entire view of the sentence. Initially, after seeing what looked like the first two items on a list, my instinct was to look for a list of three things: <em>X, Y, and Z</em>. By the end, though, I&#8217;m questioning my instinct because it seems like I have to have verb forms and yet that third item, a noun, can&#8217;t be changed (since it isn&#8217;t underlined). What to do?</p>
<p>And this is when I notice a tiny little detail that opened up the problem for me. The structure for a list of three things is <em>X, Y, and Z</em>. We have to have a comma after the <em>Y</em> and before the <em>and</em>. But there&#8217;s no comma before the <em>and</em> in the original sentence! In other words that <em>and corrosion</em> piece is not intended to be the third item in a list of three things!</p>
<p>Wow. Okay, if that <em>and</em> is not meant to be the third item in the list, then what does it go with? The word <em>and</em> always indicates parallelism, so what is <em>corrosion</em> parallel to?</p>
<p>Oh, I think I get it now. Check this out:</p>
<blockquote><p>electric currents that can cause <strong>blackouts</strong> in some areas <strong>and</strong> <strong>corrosion</strong> in north-south pipelines.</p></blockquote>
<p>The structure is actually <em>cause X and Y</em> where X = <em>blackouts</em> and Y = <em>corrosion</em>.</p>
<p>Where does that leave us with the earlier part of the sentence? I&#8217;m not sure. Maybe the first two things need an <em>and</em> in order to make them parallel (<em>affect and induce</em>). Or maybe the second item is supposed to be a modifier for the first, something like this: affect the trajectories of missiles, induc<span style="text-decoration: underline">ing</span> electric currents that can cause X and Y. I have no idea how they&#8217;ll try to fix this “ time to check the other answers (and eliminate answer A)!</p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="53"></td>
<td valign="top" width="158">
<p align="center"><strong>answer text</strong></p>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="330">
<p align="center"><strong>does it fix the problem?</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="53">(B)</td>
<td valign="top" width="158"><em>that </em>(X)<em> the trajectories</em>, (Y) <em>induce</em></td>
<td valign="top" width="330">No. <em>Trajectories</em> is a noun, but <em>induce</em> is a verb; they&#8217;re not parallel. Eliminate B.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="53">(C)</td>
<td valign="top" width="158"><em>that it</em> (X) <em>affects</em>, (Y) <em>induces</em> and?</td>
<td valign="top" width="330">No. <em>Affects</em> and <em>induces</em> are parallel but they have no <em>and</em> in between. We still can&#8217;t use <em>and corrosion</em> as the third item on the list, though, both because there&#8217;s no comma before the word <em>and</em> and because <em>corrosion</em> is a noun while <em>affects</em> and <em>induces</em> are verbs. Eliminate C.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="53">(D)</td>
<td valign="top" width="158"><em>that the trajectories</em> (X) <em>are affected and</em> (Y) <em>induces</em></td>
<td valign="top" width="330">No. They inserted the word <em>and</em> between the two verbs, which is a good move, but <em>are affected</em> is plural (and matches the plural subject <em>trajectories</em>), while <em>induces</em> is singular (and so doesn&#8217;t match the plural subject). Eliminate D.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="53">(E)</td>
<td valign="top" width="158"><em>to</em> (X) <em>affect and</em> (Y) <em>induce</em></td>
<td valign="top" width="330">Bingo! They&#8217;ve inserted the word <em>and</em> between the two verbs and also made sure that the two are parallel (they&#8217;re both in the infinitive form).</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>The correct answer is E.</p>
<p>The core structure of the correct sentence (E) is:</p>
<blockquote><p>Displays (of the aurora borealis) can heat the atmosphere enough to affect X and induce Y.</p></blockquote>
<p>That Y portion can be broken out in this way:</p>
<blockquote><p>electric currents that can cause M and N</p></blockquote>
<p>Note that the problem also tests a particular idiom: <em>can heat X enough to Y</em>. Answers B, C, and D all incorrectly replace the word <em>to</em> with the word <em>that</em>: <em>can heat X enough that Y</em>.</p>
<p>Be very careful when learning this idiom; in other circumstances, the word <em>enough</em> <span style="text-decoration: underline">can</span> be followed by the word <em>that</em>. This sentence is correct, for example: Studying is important enough that we should make it a priority. In our given sentence, though, we were trying to say that the atmosphere could be heated enough to cause another action to happen. The action should be in verb form: enough to <verb>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Key Takeaways for Parallelism and Meaning</strong></p>
<p>(1) Sometimes, the original sentence will seem to imply a certain structure or a certain way of reading it only to fall apart as you continue to read the sentence. This might also mess up your understanding of the meaning of the sentence.</p>
<p>(2) If this happens, try to figure out why you had a certain expectation in the first place. I thought the sentence was going to have the <em>X, Y, and Z</em> structure, because the first two components (X, Y) were there. Once I looked for the third element (<em>, and Z</em>) and realized that the sentence couldn&#8217;t work that way, I was on my way to solving the problem.</p>
<p>(3) Little clues can sometimes make a big difference. In the real world, you will see lists written in two different ways: <em>X, Y and Z</em> or <em>X, Y, and Z</em>. What&#8217;s the difference? The presence or absence of the second comma. The GMAT always uses the second comma (the latter example), so if you think you might have a list of three things but something seems funny, look for that comma. If it&#8217;s not there, then that sentence or answer choice is not trying to give a list of three things.</p>
<p>* GMATPrep questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/whats-parallel-to-what-parallelism-and-meaning-in-gmatprep/">What&#8217;s Parallel to What? Parallelism and Meaning in GMATPrep</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat">GMAT</a>.</p>
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