by Erica L. Meltzer | Oct 2, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
On Fixing Sentences, a lot gets made out of the intrinsic wrongness of the word being. Yes, it’s awful, yes it’s dangerous, yes it’s wrong 98% of the time. But it’s not the only dangerous word on Fixing Sentences. In fact, I would argue that along with it, which is also wrong a very high percentage of the time, this is probably the next most dangerous word on the Writing section, particularly Fixing sentences. And it really shows up a lot.
If you’re looking for a very general rule, here goes: When this is immediately followed by a noun (e.g. this book, this fact, this idea), it’s right; when there’s no noun, it’s wrong. Usually there won’t be a noun.
Now for the explanation. Like it, this is a singular pronoun, which means that it must refer to a specific singular noun (or pronoun or gerund) that appears in the sentence. If the specific noun to which this refers (the antecedent) does not appear, the sentence is incorrect. For example:
Incorrect: Members of the local government have requested that more traffic lights be installed throughout the city because they believe that this will help to prevent accidents.
What does this refer to? it could refer to the traffic lights, but that’s plural. It could also refer to the installation of the traffic lights, but installation is a noun, and only installed, a verb, appears in the sentence. So there are a couple of ways to fix the sentence. You could provide a noun that clearly specifies what is being referred to:
Correct: Members of the local government have requested the installation of more traffic lights throughout the city because they believe that the lights will help to prevent accidents.
OR you can simply add a noun after this and specify what it refers to.
Correct: Members of the local government has requested the installation of more traffic lights throughout the city because they believe that this addition will help to prevent accidents.
Now, onto that:
Unlike this, that is usually correct when it shows up in a sentence. When it’s underlined in Error-IDs, it’s usually used this way:
Correct: The local believes that installing more traffic lights throughout the city will help to prevent accidents.
OR
Correct: The additional traffic lights that have recently been installed throughout the city are expected to help prevent accidents.
In the latter case, you might wondering why that rather than which should be used. The short answer is that which is always preceded by a comma and used to set off a non-essential clause (e.g. The additional traffic lights, which have recently been installed throughout the city, are expected to help prevent accidents.) That, on the other hand, is never preceded by a comma.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Sep 30, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
I’m convinced that one of the top reasons people lose points unnecessarily on Fixing Sentences is that they neglect to actually plug their chosen answer back into the sentence and consider it in context.
While in some cases an answer may be clearly better worded or more grammatically correct than all the others, in many other cases multiple answers may appear perfectly correct on their own. In such cases — especially ones in which you are dealing with a large amount of underlined information — you should take the extra time and double-check that your answer actually works in terms of syntax, clarity, and punctuation.
It is crucial that you pay attention to the punctuation aspect, particularly to the existing (non-underlined) commas within a sentence. This is because the comma splice (two full sentences joined only by a comma) is among the two or three most common types of wrong answer choices, and it shows up constantly. Constantly. If you’re facing a full sentence on one side a comma, you can’t have a full sentence on the other side. It doesn’t matter how good it sounds or how much sense it makes in context — it’s always going to be wrong.
For example:
During the Renaissance, glass products made on the island of Murano could only be crafted according to traditional techniques, whereby they forbade artisans to leave and set up shop elsewhere.
(A) whereby they forbade artisans to leave
(B) as a result artisans were forbidden
(C) artisans were thus forbidden
(D) it being forbidden for artisans to leave
(E) and so artisans were forbidden
(A) and (D) are pretty clearly wrong, but (B), (C), and (E) all seem relatively plausible, right? Here’s the problem, though: the non-underlined portion of the sentence contains full sentence + comma, meaning that another full sentence cannot follow the comma without creating a comma splice.
If we plug these options into the sentence in turn, we get: (B) During the Renaissance, glass products made on the island of Murano could only be crafted according to traditional techniques, as a result artisans were forbidden to leave and set up shop elsewhere.
That’s two sentences separated by a comma, so that’s out.
(C) During the Renaissance, glass products made on the island of Murano could only be crafted according to traditional techniques, artisans were thus forbidden to leave and set up shop elsewhere.
That’s also two sentences separated by a comma, so it’s out too. It is very important to note that the second clause really is a full, grammatical stand-alone statement, even though it may not make logical sense outside of any context.
(E) During the Renaissance, glass products made on the island of Murano could only be crafted according to traditional techniques, and so artisans were forbidden to leave and set up shop elsewhere.
This answer correctly uses a FANBOYS conjunction to join the two sentences, thus eliminating the comma-splice problem.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Sep 27, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
As I’ve written about before, one very helpful time and energy saving strategy on Fixing Sentences is to always start by looking at the shortest answer. Since one of the things that the SAT Writing section tests is your ability to eliminate wordy and awkward constructions, it follows logically that shorter answers are typically more likely than longer ones to be correct. Identifying the shortest answer, however, is not always as straightforward as it might seem.
Here why: One of the subtler tricks that the College Board likes to play involves altering the spacing of answer choices on the first line so that the various options appear closer to one another in length than they actually are. As a result, the shortest answer often appears to be virtually the same length as a substantially longer answer.
For example:
Traveling through Yosemite, the scenery of waterfalls
and granite peaks, which we photographed, was
beautiful.
(A) the scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks, which
we photographed, was beautiful
(B) the waterfalls and granite peaks were the beautiful
scenery we photographed
(C) we photographed the beautiful scenery of
waterfalls and granite peaks
(D) we photographed the scenery of waterfalls and
granite peaks, being beautiful
(E) what we photographed was the beautiful scenery
of waterfalls and granite peaks
All the answers look about the same, right? But actually they’re not. Look again at choice (C). Another word or two could easily fit on the top line, but it’s been truncated quite substantially so that the length of the second line will appear equal to the second line of the other answers. Even though (C), the correct answer, is only a word or two shorter than some of the other answer, it takes up a lot less space — and ETS doesn’t want that difference to be too obvious.
So when you’re looking for the shortest option, don’t just compare the ends of the answers — look at the first line, and you may be surprised at just how much of a variation there actually.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Aug 8, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Present perfect = has written
The present perfect is used to describe an action that began in the past and that is continuing into the present. It is usually used in conjunction with the words for and since, which serve as “tip-offs” that this tense is required.
Correct: Leslie Marmon Silko has written best-selling novels since 1977.
Correct: Leslie Marmon Silko has written best-selling novels for more than thirty years.
Although these sentences describe actions that began in the past, they both clearly imply that that Leslie Marmon Silko is *still* a best-selling author.
Simple past = wrote
The simple past is used to describe an action that began and ended in the past.
Correct: Leslie Marmon Silko wrote her first best-selling novel in 1977.
OR
Correct: Leslie Marmon Silko was twenty-nine years old when she published her first novel.
On the SAT, sentences that require the simple past typically include a date or time period that clearly indicates a past action or event (e.g. 1815, The Renaissance, etc.).
Past perfect = had written
This is the tense that people tend to have the hardest time with. It is used only in the following case: when you have two finished actions in the past, the past perfect is used to describe the one that happened first.
In other words, if a sentence does not clearly indicate two separate actions, you should not use the past perfect!
Correct: Before Leslie Marmon Silko published her first best-selling novel in 1977, she had already written a number of well-regarded short stories.
Action #1: Leslie Marmon Silko published a number of well-regarded short stories.
Action #2: Leslie Marmon Silko wrote her first best-selling novel in 1977.
The past perfect is therefore used to describe the first action.
Under no circumstances is the following correct:
Incorrect: Before Leslie Marmon Silko had published her first best-selling novel in 1977, she wrote a number of well-regarded short stories.
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.
