Improve Your GMAT Sentence Correction

The two GMAT question types that confound newer test-takers are Data Sufficiency and Sentence Correction. For Data Sufficiency, results often improve after students memorize the answer choices and learn a standardized method. On the other hand, students often struggle with Sentence Correction questions for quite some time.

There are two ways to rapidly improve your results on Sentence Correction. The first is to learn the simple technique of isolating the sentence core. The second is to learn to recognize the different error types.

Isolating the sentence core means to simplify the sentence down to its subject and verb, and check for agreement. The subject must also agree with any pronouns that use the subject as an antecedent. Very often, the GMAT will try to mask the subject by including a prepositional phrase. For example:

Neither of these cookbooks contains the recipe for New England-style clam chowder.

In this sentence, the subject is the singular noun Neither and the verb is the singular verb contains. The prepositional phrase of these cookbooks can be ignored and the sentence core is Neither… contains.

Consider the following GMAT sentence correction examples from the Official Guide:

1. Although a surge in retail sales have raised hopes that there is a recovery finally under way, many economists say that without a large amount of spending the recovery might not last.

(A) have raised hopes that there is a recovery finally
(B) raised hopes for there being a recovery finally
(C) had raised hopes for a recovery finally being
(D) has raised hopes that a recovery is finally
(E) raised hopes for a recovery finally

The key to this example is to recognize that the subject is surge. The prepositional phrase in retail sales can be ignored. Isolating the core of the original sentence gives Surge…have raised hope. This is incorrect, since the singular noun surge requires the singular verb has. Spotting this error leads us to the correct answer (see the end of this article.)

Consider another example:

2. As its sales of computer products have surpassed those of measuring instruments, the company has become increasingly willing to compete for the mass market sales they would in the past have conceded to rivals.

(A) they would in the past have conceded to rivals
(B) they would have conceded previously to their rivals
(C) that in the past would have been conceded previously to rivals
(D) it previously would have conceded to rivals in the past
(E) it would in the past have conceded to rivals

In this example, the subject of the sentence is the singular noun the company. We can tell that the company is singular because it uses the singular verb phrase has become. The sentence core is the company…has become. This sentence core maintains subject/ verb agreement. However, recall that any pronouns that refer to the subject the company must also agree. Therefore, the use of the pronoun they later in the sentence is incorrect. This eliminates A and B. Choices C is needlessly wordy, so we're down to D or E. (see the end of the article for the correct answer.)

Isolating the sentence is the first technique to identify errors in Sentence Correction questions. More important is the second technique: learning to recognize the seven different error types. The key to improving your results on sentence correction is to recognize these errors, and anticipate the correct version of the sentence. 

After doing dozens or hundreds of sentence correction examples, experienced GMAT students will see begin to see patterns and quickly find the correct answer. A focused lesson from an experienced GMAT tutor can help identify these errors.  For more questions, contact support@thegmattutor.com . 

1. The correct answer is D.

2. The correct answer is E. D has the redundant phrase  previously…in the past, so we are left with correct answer choice E.

I'm a GMAT Tutor based in Los Angeles, CA and the author of the DVD Advanced Tips for Data Sufficiency Success. Contact me for in-person GMAT tutoring in Los Angeles or online GMAT tutoring worldwide. I can be reached through www.thegmattutor.com.