Verbal approach in general.

[rakeshd347]

Hi everyone

My name is rakesh. I gave my Gmat about 2 months back and only score 580 with Q46 and V24. I started watching Ron with thursday. After watching videos, I knew where I was wrong. I have improved a lot and in my mock test I have scored 690 with Q 48 and V37...Now I have one question if someone can please answer.
I wanted to know that I look for every sentence correction question from the point of complete sentence and sentence structure and after narrowing down the option then I look for other things like idioms and all.
I have found that so many of the answers are not even complete sentence and which eliminates 2-3 options. This is what I learned from Ron's Videos. But other scholar students who have scored 700+, they say that they look for parallelism or something else in the starting itself. I am confused wether my this approach is going to hurt me in long term or not...because half of the technical terms they use I don't even know.....like absolute phrase I just came to know about it yesterday but I knew before what it does.

So the question is wether I need to know these technical terms to be really good at SC.
and
Is it necessary to learn all the idioms and look for other stuff before looking at sentence structure.

I would highly appreciate your help.

Thanking You in Advance.

Kind regards
Rakesh

[messi10]

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... n-problem/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... #more-3166

I would probably start with those articles. I found them very helpful in getting my approach right.

I probably won't approach any problem looking for a specific error to begin with. Even though parallelism is the most popular SC topic (according to number of questions in the OG), I won't start every SC by looking for parallelism.

Similarly, I won't start looking for the structure of the sentence if the splits are visible very clearly just by scanning the answer choices. In practice, once you have solved the question, you can dismantle and spend time studying the structure. But on the test, you have to try and solve the easy questions in less than the average time so that you can spend those extra seconds gained on the medium to difficult questions.

When you are watching Ron's videos, one thing to bear in mind is that you already know the topic of the session. When he makes you practice the questions, you already know what to concentrate on. So be careful because in the real exam, this won't be the case. The takeaway from those sessions should be to understand the topic at hand and familiarize yourself with how its being tested. I am saying this because you seem to talk about the point of the sentence and the sentence structure and then idioms. He ran 3 sessions on the sentence structure and the point was to make you practice the type of questions that Stacey talks about in the second blog above. The point wasn't that you should approach every sentence correction problem in the same way.

I have found that so many of the answers are not even complete sentence and which eliminates 2-3 options.

This is news to me. Unless you and I differ in what we call "complete sentences", this comes as a surprise to me. So please elaborate more on what you mean by "complete sentences".

half of the technical terms they use I don't even know.....like absolute phrase I just came to know about it yesterday but I knew before what it does. So the question is wether I need to know these technical terms to be really good at SC.

Short answer is no. No question on the test will ask you what an absolute phrase is. You need to know how a part of a sentence works. For example, when you see an -ing form after a comma, you need to understand what does it do in terms of meaning and grammar. But you don't need to know what its terminology is.

If you are spending a lot of time on the forums such as beatthegmat or gmatclub, then knowing terminology will help because forum users use it a lot to answer questions. But most instructors will not talk in terms of terminology unless its something very basic and trivial...such as a clause, a modifier, idiom etc.

Is it necessary to learn all the idioms and look for other stuff before looking at sentence structure.

If you have a good ear and can spot idioms as you read the sentence then that's a strength for you. MGMAT SC guide has a list of around 200 commonly tested idioms. I am planning on doing only these along with some others that I may have seen in the OG or GMATPrep. There is no exhaustive list of idioms in the English language or any language for that matter so personally, I will not spend crazy number of hours on it. I have studied English since I was 5 and I still have trouble spotting idioms as some of them have crept into our day to day spoken English. I don't think any amount of idiom study will prepare me 100% for what I will see on the GMAT.

Hope this helps, but please note this is just my opinion, not a rule.

[rakeshd347]

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/28/how-to-read-a-sentence-correction-problem/

http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... #more-3166

I would probably start with those articles. I found them very helpful in getting my approach right.

I probably won't approach any problem looking for a specific error to begin with. Even though parallelism is the most popular SC topic (according to number of questions in the OG), I won't start every SC by looking for parallelism.

Similarly, I won't start looking for the structure of the sentence if the splits are visible very clearly just by scanning the answer choices. In practice, once you have solved the question, you can dismantle and spend time studying the structure. But on the test, you have to try and solve the easy questions in less than the average time so that you can spend those extra seconds gained on the medium to difficult questions.

When you are watching Ron's videos, one thing to bear in mind is that you already know the topic of the session. When he makes you practice the questions, you already know what to concentrate on. So be careful because in the real exam, this won't be the case. The takeaway from those sessions should be to understand the topic at hand and familiarize yourself with how its being tested. I am saying this because you seem to talk about the point of the sentence and the sentence structure and then idioms. He ran 3 sessions on the sentence structure and the point was to make you practice the type of questions that Stacey talks about in the second blog above. The point wasn't that you should approach every sentence correction problem in the same way.

I have found that so many of the answers are not even complete sentence and which eliminates 2-3 options.

This is news to me. Unless you and I differ in what we call "complete sentences", this comes as a surprise to me. So please elaborate more on what you mean by "complete sentences".

half of the technical terms they use I don't even know.....like absolute phrase I just came to know about it yesterday but I knew before what it does. So the question is wether I need to know these technical terms to be really good at SC.

Short answer is no. No question on the test will ask you what an absolute phrase is. You need to know how a part of a sentence works. For example, when you see an -ing form after a comma, you need to understand what does it do in terms of meaning and grammar. But you don't need to know what its terminology is.

If you are spending a lot of time on the forums such as beatthegmat or gmatclub, then knowing terminology will help because forum users use it a lot to answer questions. But most instructors will not talk in terms of terminology unless its something very basic and trivial...such as a clause, a modifier, idiom etc.

Is it necessary to learn all the idioms and look for other stuff before looking at sentence structure.

If you have a good ear and can spot idioms as you read the sentence then that's a strength for you. MGMAT SC guide has a list of around 200 commonly tested idioms. I am planning on doing only these along with some others that I may have seen in the OG or GMATPrep. There is no exhaustive list of idioms in the English language or any language for that matter so personally, I will not spend crazy number of hours on it. I have studied English since I was 5 and I still have trouble spotting idioms as some of them have crept into our day to day spoken English. I don't think any amount of idiom study will prepare me 100% for what I will see on the GMAT.

Hope this helps, but please note this is just my opinion, not a rule.

Thank you mate
Appreciate your help.
I mean I know some Idioms obviously some idioms you hear in daily life and also I have been living in australia for the past 10 years so get to learn some from there. I am not a native english speaker but learned a lot in the past 10 years.
My biggest concern is, even though it sounds very awkward,missing simple question or getting simple questions wrong but getting complicated or lengthy questions right.
This is because I just check the structure and sense of the sentence that I have learned from RON's videos...many thanks to him.
Regarding idioms its absolutely right that if I learn idioms it will be a big advantage. I have started doing 20 idioms daily and 10 questions on each idiom from websites :). I also bought Manhattan tests 6 of them and will give those test very soon excited to see my progress.

Thanks for your generous reply.
Appreciate your help.
Rakesh Kumar

[StaceyKoprince]

Some SC questions do have some answer choices that are either fragments or run-ons. Not all the time, though - not in every problem.

I wanted to know that I look for every sentence correction question from the point of complete sentence and sentence structure and after narrowing down the option then I look for other things like idioms and all.

You don't want to just have a laundry list of things you look for every time, because that will take too long.

Rather, you want to learn what kinds of clues signal what kinds of issues, and then you examine those issues when you spot those clues.

A useful study exercise is to take a file or notebook and make two columns. On the left-hand side, write down the name of a particular grammar error (eg, subj-verb agreement). On the right-hand side, write down what the splits tend to look like for that type of error. For example, nouns that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't; verbs that sometimes include "s" and sometimes don't.

That's a simpler example. Another "bigger" clue is a long underline + the big "chunks" of the sentence moving around. When this happens, the question is more likely to be testing modifiers, meaning, or structure.

Another clue is the word "and" right at the beginning or end of the underline (or right before or after the underline). Probably parallelism. Etc.

I second messi10's recommendation to read this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... orrection/

messi10 is totally right that you don't need to know the technical terms for the test. If you're reading a lesson, though, or discussing an explanation with someone, it's useful to know the terms so that you have a common language / can talk to each other easily about the problem, that's all.

Also take a look at the "how to study / learn" section here:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/