Sentence Correction Skills

主题: Sentence Correction Skills

Make a checklist of errors to look for when u read a SC question. The most common are:

1. Pron. If a sentence contains a pron., check to see whether it clearly refers to the n. it is replacing; also check to see whether the pron. agrees in number with the n. to which it refers.

2. Misplaced modifiers: if the sentence begins with a modifying phrase, check to make sure that the noun it modifies comes directly after the modifying phrase

3. Parallel construction: If a sentence contains a list of things, or actions, or is broken up into two halves, check to make sure the parts of the sentence are parallel

4. Tense: If the answer choices contain diferent verb tenses, make sure that the tense of the verb or verbs tense should be consistent throughtout a sentence.

5. Subject-verb agreement: ETS sometimes puts extraneous prepositional phrases between the subject and the verb. Cover up these phrases so that u can see whether the subject and the verb of each clause in the sentence agree with each other.

6. Apples and Oranges: When a sentence makes a comparison, check to see whether the two things being compare are comparable.

7. Quantity words: Whenever u see a quantity word (countable vs. uncountable; two vs. three or more) check to see if its is being used correctly

8. Idiom: if a sentence contains an idiomatic expression that seems wrong to u, try taking the experience out of the sentence and creating a sentence of your own with the suspect expression.

These 8 points almost include all of the SC errors. From the very begining, u should go through the 8 points one by one on each choice, until u find some errors. Then, u can omit the checklist and find errors by yourself. Hope it is helpful.