Joanna graduated from Duke with a degree in Neuroscience, so she knows a thing or two about mastering complex concepts. She spent years tutoring disadvantaged students and inner city athletes, and at Knewton she’s designed hundreds of SAT and GMAT questions. Joanna knows the verbal section of the SAT better than almost anyone on the planet. She’ll be happy to prove it to you.
The Sentence Correction section of the GMAT can be intimidating, especially for test-takers who grew up speaking a language other than English. Luckily for all you Quant whizzes, Sentence Correction portion is actually quite math-like. There are specific words and phrases that you can use to eliminate options, and you can learn how different constructions must fit together in order to form a “correct” sentence.
To ace the SC section, start by learning to identify the most commonly tested errors on the GMAT. Here are 10 concrete tips to get you on track:
1. Watch the prepositions.
Do answer choices use different prepositions? If so, check for idiomatic errors. Sometimes the difference between a correct idiom and an incorrect one comes down to which preposition is used (i.e., a consequence of vs. a consequence from). Read the rest of this entry »
Lovely Lithuania--from which less strict tax enforcement and brutal GMAT questions spring
Joanna Bersin, a Content Developer at Knewton, takes special pride in crafting mind-numbingly hard GMAT Sentence Correction questions.
Prepping for the GMAT? Check out this super-challenging Sentence Correction question. If you can get this one right, you’ve got nothing to worry about on test day! For the answer, check out the discussion here.
The policy of applying indirect taxes, like value added tax and excise duties, that were enforced in Lithuania was less strict when compared to the European Union’s members’ in 2000, which imposed tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed to be tightened in order to harmonize with the EU’s requirements and not to loosen it for the purpose of remaining competitive with trading partners outside of the EU.
(A) The policy of applying indirect taxes, like value added tax and excise duties, that were enforced in Lithuania was less strict when compared to the European Union’s members’ in 2000, which imposed tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed to be tightened in order to harmonize with the EU’s requirements and not to loosen it
(B) The policy of applying indirect taxes, including value added tax and excise duties, enforced in Lithuania was less strict when compared with the policy applied by the European Union’s members in 2000, imposing tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed to be tightened so that the country would harmonize with the EU’s requirements rather than loosening them
(C) When it was compared with that enforced by members of the European Union in 2000, the policy of applying indirect taxes, like value added tax and excise duties, that were enforced in Lithuania and that were less strict, were imposing tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed to be tightened in order to harmonize with the EU’s requirements rather than loosening them
(D) Compared with that enforced by members of the European Union in 2000, the policy of applying indirect taxes, like value added tax and excise duties, that was enforced in Lithuania was less strict, imposing tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed to be tightened so that the country would harmonize with the EU’s requirements rather than loosened
(E) In 2000, Lithuania, compared with the members of the European Union, had a policy of applying indirect taxes, including value added tax and excise duties, that were enforced less strictly, since it imposed tax rules and tariffs that, for the most part, needed tightening in order that they would harmonize with the EU’s requirements and not to loosen
Joanna is a TA and Content Developer at Knewton, where she helped identify the grammar rules students need to know in their SAT prep.
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The two portions of the Writing section on the SAT test the same rules. At Knewton, we break them down into a list called the Freshman 15. Your ticket to a sweet score on this section is to learn these rules. Think about it this way; if someone could give you a list of every vocabulary word that could possibly be tested on your exam and you could ace the sentence completion section by memorizing a list of about 15 words, you’d be ecstatic, right?
What’s even more exciting is that the simplest rules, the ones that are the most easily memorizable, are the ones that are tested on the “hardest” questions. Why is that?
Well, none of us, in everyday speech, would use, let alone recognize an error in a sentence like: “I am at once delighted with the contents of your speech but annoyed with your tone.” The correct version of this sentence is: “I am at once impressed by the contents of your speech and annoyed with your tone.” But once I tell you that “at once…and” must come as a pair, I bet you’d never miss a question testing this concept. Knowing this rule — and the fact that other connector buddies like “neither…nor,” “between…and,” and “just as…so” go together — will get you a hard question right on the Improving Sentences section every time.
The same 15 or so simple and digestible rules come up again and again. Learn them and you’ll be at once eager to tell everyone about your score increase and ready to apply to better colleges.
Written by Joanna Bersin, Knewton’s resident GMAT Sentence Correction expert.
Like a salesman trying to trick you into purchasing an expensive item by appealing to your emotions, the makers of the GMAT try to trick test-takers into both “buying” grammatically incorrect answer choices by making them concise, and eliminating answer choices that are grammatically correct by making them appear awkward and unwieldy.
How do we typically avoid splurging on unnecessary purchases? We train ourselves to shop wisely, basing our decisions on a range of criteria and not solely on what “seems” to be the most attractive option in the store. We focus on specific features, using logic to compare items. How can you choose the correct answer on test day? You don’t just listen to your ear; first make sure that each sentence you eliminate violates a concrete rule of English grammar. When choosing between the remaining, seemingly error-free, constructions, use the differences between the options to identify errors; all other things being equal, always pick the less wordy, less awkward, and more active answer choice.
But buyer, beware: The test-makers, like salesmen, want your ear to tell you what to do. Before going into “negotiations” with these tricksters, it’s best to learn some of their most common tricks. Read the rest of this entry »
