The appointmenht sat 2 docx

The kinds of errors tested in these questions range from subject-verb agreement to verb tense, from pronoun case to parallel structure.. About one in five times, the sentence will be cor

The prepositional phrase of the carpenter vari-ety may mislead you to believe that varivari-ety is

the subject, but subjects are never found in a prepositional phrase All other underlined portions are correct

3 a The proper preposition to use after contrary is

to—contrary to their expectations All other

underlined portions are correct

4 e There is no error in this sentence The use of

the plural pronoun their agrees with its antecedent, women.

5 d This sentence lacks parallel structure The

phrase which created should have the same structure as the expansion of Thus, the sen-tence should read and the creation of many new programs.

Improving Sentences

6 c The original item lacks parallel structure The

clause where the school is located is not in the

same grammatical form as the other items in the series, which are both nouns Only choice

c corrects the error Choice b places the article

the before only the second item in the series,

and choice e places the before only two items.

The phrase how many teachers to every student

in choice d is not parallel to the two nouns in

the series

7 d Choice a has a misplaced modifier It was the

ceremony that was held in 1927, not President

Coolidge Choice b retains this error and adds

the wordy it was who construction Choice

c is grammatically correct but not as concise

as choice d because it uses the passive voice.

Choice e is a sentence fragment; removing

which would correct that error.

8 b In choice a, although does not express the

cor-rect relationship between the two clauses In

choice b, the subordinate conjunction while

clearly and effectively expresses the right

rela-tionship Choice c’s use of however is correct,

but it is preceded by a comma instead of a semicolon, creating a run-on sentence Choice

d also creates a run-on sentence and does not

offer a coordinating or subordinating con-junction to express the contrast between the

two clauses Choice e repeats the error in a

and adds unnecessarily wordy constructions

Improving Paragraphs

9 b Choice b puts the paragraphs in the most

logi-cal order Paragraph 1 introduces the general topic of student volunteer programs in schools Paragraph 3 then moves to a specific program and describes volunteerism in the author’s school and her particular class Para-graph 2 then describes how she benefited from that experience; thus, paragraph 2 can only

come after the description of the program in

her class in paragraph 3 Finally, paragraph 4 (an underdeveloped paragraph) moves from her specific personal experience to the broader audience with a concluding thought encour-aging others to participate

10 e Choice e expresses the chronology more

effec-tively than the other choices by using the

subordinating conjunction After Choice a is

unnecessarily wordy and has an overall

awk-ward construction Choice b uses a wordy

which phrase and unnecessarily repeats to.

Choice c is illogical; the students are divided

into teams, but they are not divided into local

organizations Choice d is correct, but is not as clear as choice e, which includes the

chronology and makes it clear that the students

donate their time to a local organization.

 P a r t 1 : I d e n t i f y i n g

S e n t e n c e E r r o r s

Identifying Sentence Errors questions are exactly what

they sound like; they ask you to spot which part of a

sentence is incorrect, if any You don’t have to cite any

grammar or usage rules, and you don’t have to correct

the error once you find it, making these the easiest of

the three multiple-choice question types Of the 49

multiple-choice questions in the Writing section,

approximately 18 are Identifying Sentence Errors

Identifying Sentence Errors questions (we’ll just call them “Sentence Errors” from now on) are designed

to measure your knowledge of what is and what is not

acceptable in standard written English and, by

exten-sion, your ability to find grammar and usage errors in

your own writing The kinds of errors tested in these

questions range from subject-verb agreement to verb

tense, from pronoun case to parallel structure

Fortu-nately, the ETS likes to focus on a handful of key

gram-mar and usage concepts, which you will review shortly

You will also learn a handful of key strategies that can

help you more quickly and accurately identify sentence

errors

Question Structure

Each question will present a sentence with four

under-lined words or phrases These underunder-lined sections are

lettered a–d Choice e, No error, is placed at the end of

the sentence Most of the time, one of the underlined

words or phrases will contain an error in grammar,

usage, idiom, or word choice About one in five times,

the sentence will be correct, so the correct answer will

be choice e, No error.

Sample Identifying Sentence Errors Question

Every decade, a few popular television shows

a

transcends mere cleverness and high ratings to reflect

the social issues of out times No error

e The correct choice is b This is an error in

subject-verb agreement The subject, television shows, is plural

and requires a plural verb form In this case, the

cor-rect form is transcend, not the singular form transcends.

Strategies for Sentence Errors

Obviously, your best preparation for this kind of ques-tion is to know the rules of standard written English But whatever your level of grammar expertise, the fol-lowing strategies can help you identify the errors in these questions quickly and correctly

1 Listen to the sentence as you read it By hearing

how the sentence sounds in your head, you are much more likely to identify the error We can often hear that something is wrong even if we

can’t identify why it is wrong.

2 Take it one at a time Examine each underlined

part individually as you read the sentence Look

at it carefully in the context of the phrase or clause in which it is used As you go, eliminate choices that you know are grammatically correct

3 Look for the bare bones of the sentence If you

are having trouble identifying the error, try to determine the core structure of the sentence What is the subject of the sentence? The verb? Who or what is performing what kind of action? Focusing on the core sentence can help you avoid being distracted by “fillers” so you can better identify problems in agreement, parallel struc-ture, and so on

4 Trust your instincts If it sounds wrong to you, it

probably is, even if you can’t identify the gram-mar or usage rule that is being broken Because every other part of the sentence is correct, there aren’t likely to be many tricky distracters So if something doesn’t sound right, it’s probably the right answer

5 Look for the most commonly tested errors.

There are eight kinds of mistakes that pop up most often in Sentence Errors on the SAT If you are having trouble finding an error, do a quick check for the common errors described in this section

6 Remember the “No error” option

Approxi-mately one in five sentences will be correct If you reach the end of the sentence and haven’t

found a mistake, choice e (No error) is probably

the correct answer

Agreement

Grammatically speaking, agreement means that

sen-tence elements are balanced Verbs, for example, must agree with their subjects: If the subject is singular, the verb should be singular; if the subject is plural, the verb should also be plural

You can expect at least one of your Sentence Error questions to be about agreement The most common agreement issues are between subject and verb and between pronoun and antecedent In subject-verb agreement questions, you will often find a “filler”

phrase between the subject and verb intended to dis-tract you Here’s an example from the pretest:

Often mistaken for termites, carpenter ants have

a

longer bodies and shorter wings than termites,

b

and while termite antennae are straight, the antennae

c

of the carpenter variety is bent or “elbowed.”

d

No error

e

Notice how the prepositional phrase of the car-penter variety can mislead you If you assume variety is the subject, then the verb is seems correct—it agrees

with what you think is the singular subject But

sub-jects are never found in prepositional phrases, so vari-ety can’t be the subject of the verb is Look again at the sentence What is bent? Not the variety, but the anten-nae—a plural noun Thus, the verb must be are to

agree with the subject, so choice d contains the error

and is therefore the correct answer

Use the same strategy for pronoun-antecedent

agreement questions (An antecedent is the noun that

a pronoun replaces.) If a pronoun is underlined, deter-mine exactly what noun it refers to, and then see if they agree Watch out for this kind of very common error

Eight Errors to Expect

There are many different kinds of errors that might appear in this section of your SAT, and indeed any

gram-mar or usage issue is fair game However, you can expect a healthy majority of the questions to have errors

in one of the following eight categories:

1. agreement

2. consistency

3. parallelism

5. pronoun case

6. idiom

7. word choice

Incorrect: Luckily, nobody lost their luggage

on the flight

Correct: Luckily, nobody lost his or her

luggage on the flight

In the above example, the subject is the singular

indefinite pronoun nobody Because nobody is always

singular, the pronoun that refers to it must also be

sin-gular Although many times when we speak we use the

plural pronoun their to refer to nobody, this is

gram-matically incorrect

Consistency

Just as sentences must be balanced, they must also be

consistent If, for example, a sentence begins in the

past tense, it should stay in the past tense Likewise,

pro-nouns need to be consistent in person and number A

shift from the singular I to the plural we, for example,

can leave the reader wondering just who is doing what

in the sentence

Errors like the following may appear on the exam:

Incorrect: After hours of negotiations, the

leaders finally settled their differ-ences and have come to an agreement

Correct: After hours of negotiations, the

leaders finally settled their differ-ences and came to an agreement

Incorrect: One’s genetic makeup, one’s

upbringing, and one’s environ-ment are all important factors in shaping who you are

Correct: Your genetic makeup, your

upbringing, and your environ-ment are all important factors shaping who you are

In the first example, the past tense verb settled is followed by the present participle have come To be

correct, both verbs should be in the simple past: The

leaders settled their differences and came to an

agree-ment In the second example, the author uses the

indef-inite third-person pronoun one three times and then switches to the second-person you To be correct, all pronouns should be the same; either one or you will do,

as long as the sentence is consistent

Parallelism Parallel structure means that the words and phrases in

a sentence follow the same grammatical pattern This makes ideas easier to follow and expresses thoughts more gracefully Parallelism is especially important in

lists and in any two-part sentence construction These

two-part constructions include:

■ not only but also

■ the more (less, better) the more (less, better)

■ both and

■ neither nor

■ either or Notice the difference in the following examples:

Not parallel: I’m looking for a job that offers a

competitive salary, provides full health benefits, and one in which

I will be challenged so that I can grow professionally

Parallel: I’m looking for a job that offers a

competitive salary, provides full health benefits, and presents me with challenges so that I can grow professionally

Not parallel: Not only is this the most delicious

pizza I’ve ever eaten, but it also costs the most of any pizza

Parallel: Not only is this the most delicious

pizza I’ve ever eaten, but it’s also the most expensive

Parallelism is one of the favorite issues of SAT developers You can expect at least one Sentence Error with a parallelism mistake as well as parallelism issues

in Improving Sentences

Verb Form

Verbs are the heart of a sentence They express the action or state of being of the subject, telling us what the subject is doing, thinking, or feeling Correct verb form is essential to sentence clarity, and you can expect

to find at least one question with an incorrect verb form These errors include:

1 Incorrectly conjugated irregular verbs There

are dozens of irregular verbs in the English lan-guage, and the ETS wants to make sure you know how to conjugate them Here’s an example:

Incorrect: I shaked his hand when my

col-league introduced us

Correct: I shook his hand when my

col-league introduced us

The past tense of the irregular verb shake is shook.

2 Incorrect tense If there’s an error in tense, the

sentence will provide enough context for you to determine the tense the verb should be in Here’s

an example:

Incorrect: Rebecca seen the movie the day it

came out

Correct: Rebecca saw the movie the day it

came out

Seen is the past participle of the verb to see.

Past participles require a helping verb, such as

have or had This sentence requires the simple past tense saw.

Incorrect: I have been waiting for an hour

when LuAnn finally arrived

Correct: I had been waiting for an hour

when LuAnn finally arrived

The sentence requires the past perfect tense, which describes when an action happens in the

past before another action in the past In this case, the subject, I, was waiting (in the past)

before LuAnn arrived, which also happened in the past The past perfect is formed with the

helping verb had, not have.

3 Missing subjunctive The subjunctive (formed by

using the past tense were) is used to express

some-thing that is wished for or contrary to fact But we often forget to use it, both in speech and in writing:

Incorrect: If I was you, I would take a

vacation

Correct: If I were you, I would take a

vacation

The if tells us that the situation is contrary

to fact, so the verb needs to be in the subjunctive

Pronoun Case

Personal pronouns have two main forms: the subjective and objective cases This simply means that we use one form when the pronoun is acting as a subject and another form when the pronoun is acting as an object

We see them.

subject object

Pronoun questions on the SAT will often pur-posefully confuse the subjective and objective cases, as

in the following example:

Incorrect: I am taller than him

This is a very common mistake Whenever a

pro-noun follows than, it should be in the subjective case,

because in the than + (pro)noun construction the verb

is understood, even if that verb is not articulated:

Correct: I am taller than he [is]

Though we usually cut off the verb, the pronoun must still act as if it is there Thus, use the subjective

case with than constructions.

The other common pronoun error is to have the subjective case in a prepositional phrase:

Incorrect: We will split the profits evenly

between her and I

Nouns and pronouns in prepositional phrases are always objects, so the sentence requires the

objec-tive pronoun:

Correct: We will split the profits evenly

between her and me

And finally, the often-confused who and whom errors fall into this category Who is the subjective form,

whom the objective (A memory trick: Whom and him

are both objects and both end in m.)

Incorrect: Whom lives in this house?

Correct: Who lives in this house? (He lives

in this house.)

Incorrect: To who shall I address this letter?

Correct: To whom shall I address this

let-ter? (Address the letter to him.)

Idiom Idioms are expressions that are characteristic of a

par-ticular language, and they are often the most difficult aspect of a language to learn But they are essential to clear and effective communication, and you can expect

at least one question about idioms on the Writing sec-tion of the exam

Most of the time, the idioms that are tested are (1)

prepositional idioms (e.g., take care of, according to)

and (2) idiomatic use of infinitives and gerunds (e.g.,

want to meet, practice swimming) And most of the

time, by listening carefully to the sentence as you read

it, you will be able to hear this kind of mistake Listen

to the following sentences as you read them, and you should be able to hear the errors:

Incorrect: His behavior gets under my

nerves

Correct: His behavior gets on my nerves

In this case, the correct idiom uses the preposition

on An idiom similar in meaning, gets under my skin, uses the preposition under.

Idioms with infinitives (to + verb: to water) and gerunds (verb + ing: watering) are equally likely to

appear on the exam Here’s an example:

Incorrect: Experts suggest to water your

gar-den late in the day when the sun is less intense