by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 28, 2011 | Grammar (SAT & ACT)
In discussions about choosing answers on Fixing Sentences, the word “gerund” is often used as a blanket term covering just about anything that ends in -ing. It’s not quite that simple, however. Yes, gerunds are formed by tacking -ing onto verb (e.g. go —> going, talk —> talking), but participles are also formed exactly the same way.
While gerunds are usually bad, participles…well, not so much. They actually have very little effect on whether an answer is wrong or right.
This means that if you’re indiscriminately eliminating answer choices just because they contain words ending in “-ing,” you might get yourself into some trouble.
Here’s the distinction:
Gerund: A gerund is a verb that acts as a noun. It usually follows a possessive adjective such as her, your, or their (e.g. I was annoyed by his whistling).
Participle: A participle is a verb that acts as an adjective. It precedes a noun, exactly the way an adjective does (e.g. I was annoyed by the whistling boy).
Consider this sentence:
Correct: Although it lacks traditional circus elements such as animals and clowns, Cirque du Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle.
The sentence is fine because “exciting” functions as an adjective modifying “spectacle,” not as a gerund.
In addition, participles are often used to fix comma splices:
Incorrect: Cirque de Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle, it features beautiful costumes and thrilling acts.
Correct: Cirque de Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle, featuring beautiful costumes and thrilling acts.
On the other hand, answers that contain gerunds are usually wrong either because they are wordy and awkward or because they are fragments.
Wordy and awkward: In spite of its lacking traditional circus elements such as animals and clowns, Cirque du Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle.
Correct: Although it lacks traditional circus elements such as animals and clowns, Cirque du Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle.
Fragment: Cirque de Soleil being regarded as an exciting spectacle.
Correct: Cirque de Soleil is regarded as an exciting spectacle
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 27, 2011 | Blog, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
One of the top reasons the Error-ID section can be tricky is that there are so many underlined words and phrases that seem strange, as if they could potentially contain an error. I truly cannot count the number of times I’ve had a student look at sentence, screw up his or her face, and promptly announce, “That sounds funny!”
Well guess what. Error-ID sentences are chosen precisely because they contain phrasings that most test-takers will be unfamiliar with and will therefore find strange.
That does not, however, mean that they are wrong.
Error-ID answer choices are wrong only if they are always wrong; they are never wrong if they represent one of several possible correct ways to write phrase or if “you would say it differently.” Your personal preference, dear test-taker, does not enter into the equation.
Furthermore, Error-ID options can be wrong in three ways and three ways only:
1) Grammatically
2) Logically
3) Idiomatically
If a suspicious word or phrase does not fall into one of those categories, it cannot be wrong. I’m going to illustrate with a question that a number of my students have found tricky:
(A) At the reception (B) were the (C) chattering guests, the
three-tiered cake, and the lively music that have become
(D) characteristic of many wedding receptions. (E) No error
Many of my students have chosen (D) for this question because they thought there was a noun agreement problem (that is, the chattering guests, three-tiered cake, and lively music are three things and thus must be characteristics of).
The problem with this interpretation of the question is that it does not take into account the fact that “characteristic of” is a fixed phrase that is unaffected by the number of the things it is modifying. In fact, “characteristic of” is the option more in accordance with standard usage in this case, although the other would be acceptable.
The sentence would only be wrong if it read: “At the reception were the chattering guests, the three-tiered cake, and the lively music that have become a characteristic of many wedding receptions.”
The point, however, is that if there are in fact two right answers, the answer given on the test will never be wrong. So the answer to the above question is in fact “No error.”
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 25, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
As I mentioned to Debbie Stier today, Fixing Paragraphs often feels like the neglected step-child of the SAT. It doesn’t seem as fun as the other Writing sections (relatively speaking), and no one seems to spend much time talking about it. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be underestimated. Missing just four multiple choice Writing questions is enough to get you from an 800 to a 700, and if stumbling on just one or two Fixing Paragraphs questions can have serious consequences if you don’t absolutely nail Error-IDs and Fixing Sentences. So here goes.
“Fixing Paragraphs” may be part of the Writing portion of the SAT, but its placement there is somewhat deceptive. The reality is that Fixing Paragraphs does test some writing skills, but it also tests reading skills. To do well on the section, it is therefore necessary to know which questions require which approach.
Fixing Sentences questions fall into two general categories:
1) Grammar and style questions require you to either choose the best version of a particular sentence or two choose the best way of combining two sentences. These are essentially Writing questions, and the rules for answering them are essentially the same as those for Fixing Sentences: shorter answers are more likely to be correct, gerunds are bad, and passive voice is bad. While it is not crucial that you go back to the passage to examine the sentence(s) in context, it may be necessary to do so.
2) Paragraph organization and rhetoric questions require you to identify main ideas and understand the relationships between ideas and paragraphs. These are essentially Reading questions (I call them “Critical Reading-lite”), and when you answer them, you need to approach them the basic same way that you would approach Critical Reading questions.
While tone is generally irrelevant, main point is still of the utmost importance. In order to determine where a particular piece of information should be inserted or moved within a given paragraph, you need to be able to distinguish between information whose function is to introduce an idea or provide an overview (i.e. a topic sentence) and information designed to provide supporting detail…neither of which you can do without first determining the point.
For these questions, you should plan to look back at the passage, ideally before you look at the answers. Go back and read, try to get an idea of the answer for yourself, and only then look at the choices. If there’s an option that’s more or less what you came up with, it will almost certainly be right.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 23, 2011 | Blog, Time Management
I think that far too much gets made of the fact that the SAT is a timed test. Yes, you do need to practice finishing sections within the allotted time and take a full-length test or two before the real thing in order to learn how to pace yourself, but in your actual studying, your goal needs to be mastering the actual material, not just doing timed section after timed section and seeing how fast you can get.
I’ve had a couple of students come to me seriously concerned about time issues and wanting to focus on improving their speed. They were all a bit surprised to learn that I don’t usually deal directly with speed in the sense that I rarely time people or, with the exception of ACT Reading, talk about how much time they *should* be spending on any given section of a test. Why? Because speed is what results when you strengthen the actual (logical, mathematical, grammatical, etc.) skills that you’re being tested on rather than a technique in and of itself. If you just focus on the speed at the expense of the actual skills, you end up short-circuiting the entire process. You might get faster, but your score probably won’t go up all that much. On the other hand, if you improve your skills sufficiently, you won’t waste time pondering answer choices rather than actively solving problems, and the time issue usually takes care of itself.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 22, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
When it comes to answer patterns, one of the easiest to spot on SAT Writing is undoubtedly the general wrongness of options containing the word “being.” What I think often gets overlooked in these discussions, however, is the fact that the rule regarding “being” — and gerunds in general — often plays out somewhat differently in Error-IDs and Fixing Sentences. Granted I haven’t done a statistical analysis, but I have spent enough time looking at tests to be able to say this with a fair amount of confidence.
In general it is true that in Fixing Sentences, an answer choice that contains the word “being” is virtually guaranteed to be wrong, either because the word is used in place of a main verb (e.g. Mark Twain being one of the best-known satirists of the nineteenth century) or because it is used to create an unnecessarily wordy and awkward construction (e.g. “Mark Twain is very well known today being that he was a brilliant satirist” rather than “Mark Twain is very well known today because he was a brilliant satirist”).
In Error-IDs, however, the same doesn’t quite hold true. Yes, “being” is perhaps somewhat more likely to be incorrect, particularly on the very easiest questions (where it may be used very obviously to replace a main verb), but otherwise it’s just as likely to be a distractor answer. This is in part because the only real error category that “being” falls into is gerund vs. infinitive, and it is highly unlikely that any given Error-ID section will include more than or or two such questions.
So yes, on Fixing Sentences, you should be very, very suspicious of any answer choice that contains the word “being,” but if the word is underlined on Error-IDs, take good look at your other options before you jump to pick it.
