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.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 3, 2011 | Blog, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
I’m convinced that when the College Board tests out its Writing questions, it’s not just checking to see which errors various percentages of test-takers are likely to get right but also which correct constructions test-takers likely to think are incorrect.
Consider the following (College Board) sentence:
The dolls in the collection, all more than two hundred years old, had been carefully carved for children long since gone” (Official Guide, 2nd edition, p. 777)
The answer is “No error,” but nearly all of my students have missed that question because they couldn’t get over how weird the phrase “long since” sounded.
At first I thought that the phrase just happened to be something that the College Board had stuck in that one particular question.
I was wrong.
As I looked through more CB tests, including PSATs, I started to notice it occurring on a semi-regular basis, and I realized that it was being used as a sort of official trick answer.
So if you see “long since” (or even just “long”) pop up in a question, ignore it! And moreover, there’s a good chance that the answer is actually (E).
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 21, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Grammar rule: any pronoun that follows a preposition must be an object pronoun (me, her, him, us, them NOT I, she, he, we, they).
I realize, however, that most people do not want to think about prepositions and subject and object pronouns, especially while they’re taking the SAT, so now I’m going to give you the shortcut:
Pretty much everyone employs this rule naturally when using singular subject and objects: you just wouldn’t say, “me is going to the store,” or “the cashier gave the change back to he.”
When subject and objects are plural, however, people tend to get confused. But here’s the thing: there’s no difference between using pronouns with singular and plural subjects and objects. In fact: Whatever goes for singular also goes for plural.
The SAT almost always pairs pronouns with a proper names (e.g. Jesse and I; she and Maria), so if you cross out the proper name, you’ll virtually always be able to hear whether there’s an error.
Let’s look at a couple of examples
Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and I.
The first thing that we can notice is that we have a name (Sarah) paired with a pronoun (I).
If we cross out the words “Sarah and,” we are left with:
Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to I.
Would you say that? Of course not. You’d say, “The teacher finally returned the report to me.”
So you’d also say:
Correct: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and me.
Or:
Incorrect: Tom and me went to the baseball game yesterday after school. Cross out: [Tom and] me went to the baseball game yesterday after school. If you wouldn’t say “Me went to the baseball game,” you wouldn’t say, “Tom and me went to the baseball game” either. The sentence should therefore read:
Correct: Tom and I went to the baseball game yesterday after school.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 20, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
This is another one of those lovely “true 100% of the time” rules — they pop up so infrequently on the SAT that you really do appreciate them when they appear. Even better, this is a rule that the College Board tests pretty often, so there’s a decent chance you’ll come across it in any given Error-ID section. And if you do happen to encounter it, it’s an easy point. You don’t even have to think about the other options. Here’s why: “Between” is a preposition, and prepositions are always followed by object (rather than subject) pronouns.
Subject Pronouns
I
You
She/He/It
We
You
They
Object Pronouns
Me
You
Her/Him/It
Us
You
Them
Since the “you” forms are identical in subject and object form, SAT does not test them. Most often, it tests the first person singular (I vs. Me) or third person singular (he vs. him).
Subject pronouns are used as subjects, while object pronouns can be used as objects (I know, big shock there).
To give an obvious example, you would say, “I went to the store,” not “me went to the store” because “I” is a subject pronoun; however, you would say “I see her,” not “I see she” because “her” is an object pronoun.
Likewise, you’d say “This book is for her,” not “This book is for she.” Thus, you would always say “between you and me” (preposition + object pronoun + object) pronoun, NOT “between you and I” (preposition + object pronoun + subject pronoun).
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 17, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Beyond the fact that Fixing Sentences comprises about half of the SAT multiple-choice Writing questions (25/49), it is significant for another reason: it’s always Section 10, the last section of the test.
The good news is that at 10 minutes, it’s the shortest section. The bad news is that when you get to it, you’ll have already sat through 4.5 hours of testing.
Unfortunately, Writing has the steepest curve of the three sections. While missing five questions will cost you about 50 points on Critical Reading, it will cost you 100 on Writing.
You must therefore be absolutely systematic in attacking each question. And given that you won’t have a brain cell to spare when you deal with the last of Fixing Sentences, you need to know what you’re looking for.
The following rules provide general guidelines for selecting answer choices. They won’t get you the answer for every question, but for the vast majority, they will allow you to eliminate incorrect options faster and with less chance of second-guessing yourself.
1) Shorter is better
Since the SAT prizes conciseness, shorter answers are more likely to be correct. To save yourself time, look at answer choices from shortest to longest.
Particularly at the beginnings of sections, it is highly unlikely that one of the longer answers will be correct, and by checking the shorter ones first, you can save huge amounts of time.
Furthermore, whenever you are stuck between two answers, both of which are grammatically correct and express the same essential information, the shorter one will always be correct.
2) Gerunds (-ING), especially “Being” = BAD
Gerunds create sentence fragments and make things unnecessarily awkward. When given the the choice between a gerund a conjugated verb, assuming that both are grammatically correct, always go for the latter.
If you cross out all of the gerunds and don’t see anything that works, then you can reassess. Normally, however, if you start out by assuming that answers containing gerunds are incorrect, you’ll be right.
3) Passive Voice = BAD
Active: The politician gave the speech.
Passive: The speech was given by the politician.
Like gerunds, passive voice can make things unnecessarily wordy and long (and shorter is better, remember?) If you have to choose between an active and a passive version of the same sentence, go for the active one.
In addition, make sure you look out for the following:
-Comma Splices (always wrong)
-Non-Essential Clauses (answer is always right when it contains a correctly used NEC)
-Semicolon + however, therefore, moreover, or consequently (probably right)
-Semicolon + FANBOYS conjunction (always wrong)
-Answers that include the following words: plus, whereby, this, it, and that (usually wrong)
-Parallelism problem on the last question of the section.
Let’s see how that applies to a real question:
A poetic form congenial to Robert Browning was the dramatic monologue, it let him explore a character’s
mind without the simplifications demanded by stage productions.
(A) monologue, it lets him explore
(B) monologue, which let him explore
(C) monologue that lets him explore
(D) monologue; letting him explore
(E) monologue by letting him do exploration of
Strategy: if you recognize that (A), the original version of the sentence, is a comma splice, so it can be eliminated immediately.
(D) and (E) contain gerunds, so they can also be eliminated, leaving us with (B) and (C).
Choice (C) is shorter, but the verb (“lets”) is in the present, whereas the rest of the sentence is in the past, so (B) is the answer.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 14, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Who vs. whom (who is switched only with which)
Which vs. that
“Neither…nor” with subject-verb agreement using plural nouns (e.g. “Neither book nor the pencil is on the table” is tested; “Neither book nor the pencils are on the table” is not)
Among vs. between
Much vs. many
Fewer vs. less
Further vs. farther
Its vs. it’s
Their vs. they’re vs. there
Who’s vs. whose
May vs. might
A lot vs. alot
Pronoun case with comparisons (“She is a better soccer player than I” vs. “She is a better soccer player than me”)
Subject verb agreement with “none” (“None of us know vs. None of us knows”)
Colons (very, very occasionally, a correct answer will contain a colon, but they’re not explicitly tested)
Dashes
Apostrophes (plural vs. possessive)
And punctuation errors are virtually never tested on the Error-Identification section! Very rarely a comma splice will occur, but questions like that are rare exceptions.
