by Erica L. Meltzer | May 11, 2011 | Blog, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Diction (aka usage or “wrong-word”) issues are frequently cited as one of the top errors that the SAT Writing section tests, but the reality is that they only show up occasionally. In all the College Board tests I’ve ever looked at — and that’s quite a few — I’ve seen no more than a handful. It doesn’t matter if the other prep books include it all over the place; the College Board doesn’t.
So yes, while you should learn the difference between “affect” and “effect” so that you can use the words properly in your own writing, in terms of the SAT, I would not suggest that you spend your time memorizing long lists of commonly confused words. When usage errors do appear, they tend to be highly unexpected and often involve switching two words (e.g. “collaborate” and “corroborate”) that you’d never necessarily expect to be switched from looking at a “commonly switched words” list. You’ll either spot the error or you won’t. Besides reading a lot and developing a good ear for usage, there’s no real way to prepare.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my philosophy is that you should spend your time worrying about the things that are pretty much guaranteed to be on the test (subject- verb agreement, pronoun agreement, tense consistency, dangling modifiers, semicolons, etc.) and that are well within your control. As for the rest, it’s not worth your time to worry about. You can hit 750+ just focusing on the other, and once you’re in that range, it’s no longer about your scores.
P.S. In case you were wondering about the whole affect vs. effect thing, the former is a typically used as a verb and the latter as a noun: “I was strongly affected by the movie,” BUT “the movie had a strong effect on me.”
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 3, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
If “it” is one of the most dangerous words on the Writing section of the SAT, then “do it” is one of the most dangerous phrases. While I’m hesitant to say that any particular word or phrase will be wrong 100% of the time — the College Board can always figure out a new way to test a particular rule — “do it” comes pretty close.
The reason this phrase is so often incorrect is based on the fact that pronouns such as “it” can only refer to nouns or gerunds ( the -ING form a verb), never to any other part of speech such as verbs or adjectives. For example:
Incorrect: People who become vegetarians often do it because they believe strongly in animal rights.
What does the word “it” refer to?
Becoming vegetarians.
But the gerund “becoming” doesn’t actually show up in the sentence, only the verb “become.” And a pronoun can only refer to a noun or a gerund, not a verb.
The pronoun “it” therefore doesn’t actually refer to anything (in grammatical terms, we can say that it lacks an antecedent), and the sentence cannot be correct. To fix it, we must instead say:
Correct: People who become vegetarians often do so because they believe strongly in animal rights.
On the flipside, anytime you see the phrase “do so” underlined, it is almost certainly correct, and there’s a pretty good chance that the answer to the question will be “No error.”
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 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 11, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
On the SAT Writing section, there are five conjunctions that must always be preceded by a semicolon when they are used to begin a clause.
However
Therefore
Moreover
Consequently
Nevertheless
The first two appear very frequently while the other three are less common, but the rule is the same for all of them. The inclusion of these conjunctions is usually a dead giveaway that a question is testing semicolon usage, so if you see one of them, first check whether there is an answer that includes a semicolon; it will virtually always be correct. For example:
Researchers believe that genes could affect the amount of caffeine people consume, environmental factors are known to play an important role as well.
(A) consume, environmental factors are known to play an important role
(B) consume; but environmental factors are known to play an important role
(C) consume, an important role is known to be played by environmental factors
(D) consume; however, environmental factors are known to play an important role
(E) consume, with environmental factors being known to play an important role
If you can recognize the original version of the sentence as a comma splice (two sentences separated by a comma), you’re already ahead of the game. What you may not realize, however, is that you don’t actually have to reach each answer through word by word, trying to find the best way to fix the sentence.
Since semicolons are one of the most common ways to fix comma splices, any answer that contains one has a pretty good chance of being right. Furthermore, any answer that contains “semicolon + however,” is usually going to be correct. So if you scan through the answers and spot that choice D contains just that, you already know that you’ve probably found that right answer without even having to read through the other options.
To be on the safe side, you do need to plug the answer back into the sentence and check that it makes sense (it does), but working like this can save you an awful lot of time and worry.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Feb 27, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Collective nouns are one of the SATs favorite ways to trick you — even though they refer to groups made up of multiple people, they are always singular.
Common examples of collective nouns: Jury, Team, City, Country, Agency, Company, Committee, School, University
Whenever one of these words appears in a sentence, you need to check both the verbs and the pronouns that it corresponds to. If either of these is plural, you’ve found your error.
Subject-Verb Disagreement
Correct: The jury has finally returned a verdict after many days of deliberation.
Incorrect: The jury have finally returned a verdict after many days of deliberation.
Pronoun Disagreement
Correct: The jury finally returned its verdict after many days of deliberation.
Incorrect: The jury finally returned their verdict after many days of deliberation.
If, on the other hand, a group noun appears in a sentence in which all verbs and pronouns are correct, the answer is likely to be “No Error.”
