how to solve question within 1 min

[a.bhardwaj]

Hello Stacey,
First of all, I would like to thank you for opening such forum. ManhattanGMAT is best for prepartion of GMAT. I was weak in SC. After reading ManG SC guide. My speed and accuracy are increased. How can I improve them further?
Is their any basic rule that I should follow to crack the question accurately in minimum time?

Thanks,
Abhishek

[StaceyKoprince]

Great question! Here's a general process for moving through any SC question:

Read the original sentence all the way through.

If you happen to spot anything problematic, examine. If it's an error, cross off A.

Then scan the other choices vertically, at the same point as that error you found (do NOT read the whole answer choice), and cross off any others that repeat the same error.

Repeat the above until you've dealt with everything you happened to see on your first read-through of the original sentence (note: sometimes you won't see anything on the first read-through!).

If you've exhausted the original sentence, do a vertical scan of the first word of each choice (there's always at least one difference at the beginning). If you can identify the potential error based on the differences you see, deal with it. If not, do a vertical scan of the last word of each choice (again, always at least one difference at the end) - same thing. After that, do a vertical scan starting at the beginning of each choice - compare every two to three words. Do NOT read through each choice separately (horizontally).

If you notice a difference when scanning but you don't know what error that difference might signify, keep going - look for a different split.

If you've dealt with everything you know how to deal with and you still have more than one choice left, pick something and move on. Don't agonize over it - just pick and go.

[jitenderjain065]

Hi Stacey,
it seems the technique will work good
but...
Repeat the above until you've dealt with everything you happened to see on your first read-through of the original sentence (note: sometimes you won't see anything on the first read-through!).
how many tmes one has to repeat and one thing more, its really tough for me , to find the errors in one Go, as i read the sentence, i am a non native english

Great question! Here's a general process for moving through any SC question:

Read the original sentence all the way through.

If you happen to spot anything problematic, examine. If it's an error, cross off A.

Then scan the other choices vertically, at the same point as that error you found (do NOT read the whole answer choice), and cross off any others that repeat the same error.

Repeat the above until you've dealt with everything you happened to see on your first read-through of the original sentence (note: sometimes you won't see anything on the first read-through!).

If you've exhausted the original sentence, do a vertical scan of the first word of each choice (there's always at least one difference at the beginning). If you can identify the potential error based on the differences you see, deal with it. If not, do a vertical scan of the last word of each choice (again, always at least one difference at the end) - same thing. After that, do a vertical scan starting at the beginning of each choice - compare every two to three words. Do NOT read through each choice separately (horizontally).

If you notice a difference when scanning but you don't know what error that difference might signify, keep going - look for a different split.

If you've dealt with everything you know how to deal with and you still have more than one choice left, pick something and move on. Don't agonize over it - just pick and go.

[esledge]

If you are a non-native speaker, and you don't catch any errors in your first read of the question, you may want to read through just one more time to make sure you get the intended meaning.

But if you don't notice any errors after that second read, then I think you should move to the next step that Stacey described: a vertical scan of the answers, looking for splits. At least the splits will give you some idea what grammar rules to focus on.

[robertrdzak]

This is a tick I use and have found it does improve my probability of scoring additional points, After I have exhausted the guide set up by MGMAT and I am still stuck between 2 or maybe 3 possible answers, I choose the shorter one. GMAT rewards concesion and I have found that between a 50/50 shot this "tie breaker" works out 75% of the time...

[Ben Ku]

Concision is helpful as a "tie-breaker." If you cannot spot grammatical errors among the non-eliminated options, and they seem to be clear in their meaning, the more concise expression is usually a good last resort selection. However, the warning is that you use concision as a last resort. The GMAT also likes to offer falsely concise answer choices: concise choices that have other grammatical issues.