by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 16, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
If you’ve already spent a reasonable amount of time studying for SAT Writing, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen parallelism questions that look like this:
Incorrect: Susan likes running, playing soccer, and to hike.
Correct: Susan likes running, playing soccer, and hiking.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the rule, it’s that all of the items in a list (typically three) must be in the same format: either verb, verb, verb; noun, noun, noun; or gerund, gerund, gerund. No mixing and matching!
But “lists” involving three items aren’t the only of parallelism that gets tested on the SAT. In fact, there’s another kind that only deals with two items.
Two-part parallelism, while based on the same principle, is a little bit trickier. Instead of dealing with words, it deals with entire phrases. Furthermore, because most prep books don’t even cover it, many people get caught off guard when they encounter it on the actual test.
In addition, this structure often tested in conjunction with word pairs. Spot the word pair, and you can answer the question quickly.
Here’s the rule:
The construction of a phrase on one side of a given conjunction must match the construction of the phrase on the other side of that conjunction as closely as possible.
I realize that’s very abstract, so let me give you an example:
Incorrect: The researchers called for enforcement of tobacco regulations as well as investigating motivations for smoking.
The first thing we can notice about this sentence is that it contains a conjunction, “as well as,” and that there is a phrase on either side of it. So what were the two things researchers called for?
1) Enforcement of tobacco regulations (noun + of + adjective + noun)
2) Investigating motivations for smoking (gerund + noun + preposition + noun)
Clearly, the two sides do not match. The SAT will virtually always ask you to correct the second side, and so we need to rewrite the second side in accordance with the structure “noun + of + noun,” which is the absolute classic structure that the SAT loves to use.
Correct: The researchers called for the enforcement of tobacco regulations as well as an investigation of motivations for smoking.
If it helps, think of it as the English equivalent of balancing an equation.
Now here’s why it’s really important that you be able to both recognize and correct this type of error with little to no effort: it usually shows up at the end of Fixing Sentences — typically as either the last or the second-to-last question of the section (#10 or 11 on the first section; #13 or 14 on the second), so there’s a very good chance you’ll see it after sitting through four-and-a-half hours or more of testing. You won’t have the energy to think about it. The good news is that if you can recognize what the question is testing, you can usually jump right to the answer choice.
For example, let’s consider the following real question (October ’06 test, section 10, #14):
Acquaintances of Alexei have commented that he is at once annoying because of his unpredictability but his imagination is still a delight.
(A) but his imagination is still a delight
(B) although he is delightfully imaginative
(C) and he is delightful in his imagination too
(D) while being imaginative and they are delighted
(E) and delightful because of his imagination
If you can recognize the word pair “at once…and,” that immediately gets you down to (C) and (E).
But how to decide between them? The structure before the conjunction is “adjective + because of + noun” (annoying because of his unpredictability) you know that the other side must contain that same construction as well.
If you just look for the words “because of,” that leads you right to (E), which is indeed the answer.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 15, 2011 | SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
Perhaps some of you have heard of Adam Mansbach’s surprise best-seller Go the F**k to Sleep. The parent of a toddler, Mansbach wrote the book, which promptly rose to the top of the New York Times best-seller list, to convey the sheer hell of living with a three year-old who simply will not go to sleep.
While I don’t deal much with toddlers, there is one frustration I confront regularly that makes me believe I understand Mansbach’s exact sentiment — that is, a student’s total and utter unwillingness to go back to a Critical Reading passage and read. And at those moments, after I’ve said five or six times, “what does the author say?” only to be met with repeated blank stares, or “well, I feel like he’s saying…”, I do in fact want to say: “Go back to the f**ing passage and tell me, as literally as you possibly can, what it actually says. Not what you think you remember it says. Not what you feel it might be saying. Not what it makes you think of. What is actually says.”
I have lost track of the number of times a student, upon discovering that the answer is, say, (E) rather than (B), proclaims that he or she doesn’t really feel that the scenario described in (E) occurs in the passage. At which point I promptly go back to the passage and read an entire paragraph’s worth of exactly what was described in (E). It’s usually so obvious that the student can’t even argue.
So newsflash: going back and reading very carefully is the only way to be 100% certain that your answer checks out. If you are not willing to do this, the bottom line is that your score will most likely not improve dramatically regardless of how many practice tests you take.
Again, let me reiterate: if you refuse to go back and read, you have virtually zero chance of getting a score above 750 and a very minimal chance of getting one above 700.
Maybe you’ve heard about the 700 wall? This is often what it comes down to. I’ve had many students who came to me scoring in the 600s. Those who were willing to accept that they needed to go back and check everything out — and who saw that they actually got the answer that way, rather than just playing Russian roulette with process of elimination — ended up with scores in the 700s, in some cases very high in the 700s.
The ones who kept on insisting they didn’t need to check, who consistently refused to try to see the relationship between the correct answer and the specific wording in the text, and who remained perennially stuck on what they thought rather than trying to figure out what the author was saying, simply could not break 700 no matter how hard they tried. It was always hit or miss, not steady improvement. Yes, they got most of the answers right, but they also always got just enough answers wrong so that it really hurt their score. And some of them took literally dozens more practice tests than my higher-scoring students did — even if both had started out in approximately the same place.
Now, if you’re already consistently going back to the passage and having trouble understanding what it’s actually saying or are not certain how to locate the information necessary to answer the questions (not necessarily in the line numbers given), that’s a different story. You need to either work on building your literal comprehension (learning vocabulary and/or familiarizing yourself with “serious” college/adult-level writing) or on learning the types of words and phrases that you need to look out for.
But if neither of things is an issue for you, just go back and read the f**g passage.
Trust me. It works.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 13, 2011 | Blog, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
They’re a waste of time. Seriously. The College Board can ask anything. There are no patterns, no logic, no way to guess what’ll show up.
Your main concern needs to be fully mastering the things you can control, and you cannot control prepositions. There are too many, and they’re too random. Sitting for hours trying to memorize lists of them does not constitute an effective use of your time.Making sure that you can recognize dangling modifiers, comma splices, subject-verb disagreements, pronoun disagreements, and problems in parallel structure does.
Besides, there will usually be a grand total of two preposition questions on SAT Writing, and sometimes not even that. Even if you miss them, you can still score an 800. And frankly, as long you’re above 750, no one really cares all that much. On occasion, people even get into top schools with — get ready for this one — scores in the low 700s!
Now, if you have truly and thoroughly mastered every single other grammar rule tested on the SAT — to the point at which you do not ever miss a single non-idiom/preposition question — you can consider looking at some prepositions. But at that point, it’s just not really worth your time to sit there memorizing idiom after idiom when you could be doing things that will actually make you an interesting, appealing candidate to colleges (or simply an interesting person period).
So please, do yourself a favor and go finish your physics homework instead.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 12, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
When I used to tell students to write down every step of their reasoning process on Reading questions, their typical reaction was, “But doesn’t that take too much time?” While perfectly understandable, that thinking is based on the assumption that writing things down on a standardized test is somehow akin to writing in, say, English class. It isn’t. As a matter of fact, it’s not even close. It’s not about thinking things over leisurely or making them sound nice or being original. It’s about keeping yourself actively and sharply focused on the information you’re looking for, and it needs to be done fast. So in the service of that end, here are some general rules:
1) Keep it very, very short
Five or six words tops for your main point, three or so for anything else. Note-taking should not noticeably cut into the time you spend either reading or answering questions. That means:
2) Abbreviate like there’s no tomorrow.
Draw symbols, arrows, whatever you need to get the point across fast. Vowels and full words are your enemies. No one is grading you on your eloquence. The only thing that matters is that you understand what you mean and are able to use that information effectively.
Compare, for example, the following two versions of the main point for an imaginary passage about the effect of World War II on women’s roles in American society
Way too long: World War II had a positive effect on the lives of American women because it expanded their traditional roles by allowing them to find jobs outside of their homes for the first time.
Good Length: WWII + b/c women ? jobs
The first version takes up a lot of time to write, the second one virtually none. Guess which one is more effective at keeping you focused.
3) Write down arguments, not facts
Let’s go back to that pretend WWII passage and imagine that it’s about Rosie the Riveter (come to think of it, this might actually be in a real passage somewhere). You can’t just write “Rosie the Riveter;” that tells you nothing.
Instead, you want to write something like, “RR impt b/c inspired US wmn” (Rosie the Riveter was important because she inspired American women).
4) Circle transitions, not nouns
Transitions such as “however” and “furthermore,” and “because” tell you why information is important. Simply underlining the information itself will tell you nothing and will probably do little to help you answer the questions. Do not ever circle any form of the verb “to be.”
5) Focus on the argument of the overall passage, not the individual paragraphs
You don’t need to to write the argument of every paragraph when you do an initial read-through. Figuring out where a particular paragraph fits into a passage’s overall argument in something you can deal with when you encounter a specific question about that paragraph. At absolute most, you could do something like +, +, – for two paragraphs that support a point and one that contradicts it, but anything more will get
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 11, 2011 | GMAT
The question of when to use which vs. that is one of the most common issues that people studying for the GMAT face. I’ve done some hunting around on the web, and while there are a lot of articles explaining the distinction, most of them present the issue is much more complicated terms than is necessary. Knowing the grammar behind the rule might occasionally come in handy, but the reality is that most of the time it’s pretty irrelevant. In this post, I’m going to give you the shortcut.
The most important thing to know is that which follows a comma and that does not. In other words, comma = which, no comma = that.
Incorrect: The treaty of Tordesillas, that was signed on June 7, 1494, and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
Correct: The treaty of Tordesillas, which was signed on June 7, 1494, and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
Incorrect: The treaty which was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
Correct: The treaty that was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
Note that the GMAT almost always tests this rule by incorrectly using which without a comma rather than that with a comma, as in the second set of sentences above.
Why? Because the use of which without a comma is much more difficult for most people to identify as an error. That’s hardly a surprise since that construction is considered perfectly acceptable in everyday writing, particularly in British English. The GMAT, alas, is entirely uninterested in that fact and insists that you adhere strictly to the “only use which after a comma” rule.
Regardless of what you happen to think of that, knowing the GMAT’s preference can help you quickly eliminate answers on questions like this:
The treaty which was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile.
(A) The treaty which was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and authenticated
(B) The treaty signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and authenticated
(C) The treaty which was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, and being authenticated
(D) The treaty of Tordesillas, signed on June 7, 1494, and it was authenticated
(E) The treaty that was signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, its authentication
Sorry, you didn’t think I was going to make things overly straightforward here, did you?
Even if you can’t use the rule we just covered to get all the way to the answer, (B), you can at least cross out (A) and (C) right away. That allows you more room to work carefully through the other answers. (D) and (E) both create awkward and ungrammatical constructions, so they can be eliminated.
