The appointment sat 5 ppt

Revising Individual Sentences These questions refer to a specific sentence within the passage and ask you to determine the most effective revision of that sentence.. These questions are

Question Structure

The Improving Paragraph section begins with a short

passage (typically two to four paragraphs long) The

passage may be a draft of an essay, a letter to the editor,

an excerpt from a memo—some kind of general

writ-ing task Because it is a draft, it will need improvement

on many levels There will be a series of questions

fol-lowing the passage that make improvements on it

These questions can be divided into three general

cat-egories: revising individual sentences, revising

sen-tence pairs, and revising the big picture.

Revising Individual Sentences

These questions refer to a specific sentence within the

passage and ask you to determine the most effective

revision of that sentence These questions are essentially

the same as those in Improving Sentences, with the

exception that you will often need to consider the

con-text of the passage to determine the correct answer For

example, the alternate versions of the sentence in

ques-tion may offer different transiques-tions from the previous

sentence in the passage, but only one will be correct,

concise, and the most appropriate way to move from

one idea to another

Revising Sentence Pairs

These questions refer to two specific sentences within

the passage and ask you to determine the most effective

revision and/or combination of those sentences These

questions are also quite similar to Improving Sentences,

and they often focus on establishing the right

relation-ship (coordination/subordination) and proper

bound-aries between the two sentences Here’s a sample of

this type of question:

Which of the following is the most effective com-bination of sentences 13 and 14 (reprinted below)?

(13) Insomnia does not usually begin as a physical problem (14) It can affect one’s physical health.

a Insomnia is not usually a physical problem;

therefore, it can affect one’s physical health

b Insomnia is not usually a physical problem,

yet it can affect one’s physical health

c Insomnia not usually a physical problem can

affect one’s physical health

d Insomnia is not usually a physical problem, so

it can affect one’s physical health

e Insomnia can affect one’s physical health;

furthermore, it is not a physical problem

The correct answer is b The conjunction yet

prepares the reader for a contrast: is not usually (yet)

it can

Revising the Big Picture

“Big picture” questions ask about paragraph-level and essay-level issues such as organization and writing strategies Thus, the format and writing issues can vary greatly Here’s a sample big picture question:

Which of the following is the most logical order

of the paragraphs?

a 1, 2, 3, 4

b 1, 3, 2, 4

c 2, 3, 4, 1

d 4, 3, 2, 1

e 1, 4, 2, 3

Caution: Question Formats Vary!

Unlike Sentence Errors and Improving Sentences, the questions and answer choices for Improving

Remember, you can expect the eight or so Improving Paragraphs questions to be divided more or less equally among these three question types: revising individual sentences, revising sentence pairs, and revis-ing the big picture

Strategies for Improving Paragraphs

Improving Paragraphs may seem significantly harder than Sentence Errors and Improving Sentences because you are dealing with a whole essay and questions about three different levels of writing But don’t be daunted

First, your focus is still only revision—one step in the writing process Second, there are once again a few basic kinds of questions and errors you can expect

And third, there are, as always, specific strategies you can use to help you more quickly and accurately answer these questions

1 Scan the questions before you read the passage.

The draft contains many more errors than you will be asked about Reading the questions first can help you focus on the mistakes that you will need to revise and not be distracted by the other weaknesses and errors in the passage

2 Read the questions carefully The questions

will direct you to the specific areas to revise and the specific writing issue(s) that need to

be addressed For example, if a question asks,

“Which phrase, if added to the beginning of sentence 2, would most improve the essay?” you know you need to determine the relationship between sentences 1 and 2 and then determine the best transition

3 Remember the 3 C’s For questions that ask you

to revise sentences, use the 3 C’s as your guide

Choose the version that is correct (no grammar, usage, or logic errors), clear (no ambiguity or confusing sentence structure), and concise (no

wordiness)

4 Study the most common question topics This

will help you know what to expect and what to look for as you read the passages

5 Save the big picture questions for last They’re

usually the most time-consuming Improving Paragraph question type

6 Do Improving Paragraphs last Improving

Para-graphs is the smallest question category on the exam (only about 8 questions) and these ques-tions take the longest to complete—so save them for last Do Identifying Errors first and then Improving Sentences to answer the most ques-tions in the least amount of time and earn the most points toward your score

Common Question Topics for Improving Paragraphs

Just as Improving Sentences may include the kinds of mistakes found in Sentence Errors, Improving Para-graphs may include any of the Sentence Errors and Improving Sentences issues as well as new big-picture matters This may sound a bit overwhelming, but the sentence-level errors will often be the same sort already covered in Parts 1 and 2—and probably half, if not more, of your questions will be of this type They may require you to consider the context of the passage, but the types of errors will be much the same as you already tackled in the other sections

The new types of questions to expect include questions about: effective paragraphing, organization, transitions, introductions and conclusions, paragraph unity, development, and style

Effective Paragraphing

A paragraph, by definition, is a group of sentences about one idea Long paragraphs often contain more than one main idea and should usually be divided to improve readability and unity of ideas A question about effective paragraphing might be worded as follows:

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The author wishes to divide paragraph 2 into two paragraphs After which sentence should the author begin a new paragraph?

This means you have to look for a turning point

in the paragraph—a place where the topic shifts to a

new idea

Effective Organization of Ideas

Paragraphs and essays can be organized in many

dif-ferent ways The key is that they be organized logically.

The most common organizational patterns include

order of importance, chronology, cause and effect, and

comparison and contrast

Underlying the organizational pattern is the basic

essay structure, assertion → support That is, an essay has

a main idea, which should be stated near the beginning

of the essay, and the rest of the essay serves to develop

and support that idea The same happens on the

para-graph level; each parapara-graph has one main idea, often

expressed in a topic sentence The rest of the

para-graph supports that main idea

A question that asks “Which would be the most effective order of paragraphs?” tells you to look carefully

at the organizational pattern Are the paragraphs out of

chronological order? Does the discussion of X interrupt

the discussion of Y? Does the paragraph start with

spe-cific examples, make a general statement, and then go

back to providing more examples?

Remember the pretest? The paragraph in the essay about student volunteer programs was out of

order The author discussed her specific experience in

paragraph 2, and then in paragraph 3 described the

general set up of the program at her school The more

logical progression would be paragraph 3 first—the

general set up—and then her specific experience

Effective Transitions

Transitions are those words and phrases that lead from

one idea to another—meanwhile, however, after, in

con-trast A paragraph that needs a stronger transition is a

likely candidate for an Improving Paragraphs ques-tion Here’s how that question might be worded:

Which of the following sentences, if added to the end of paragraph 1, would most effectively link the paragraph to the rest of the essay?

This kind of question tells you that you need to look for the relationship between paragraphs 1 and 2 Does paragraph 2 offer another example? Describe a different point of view? Then find the sentence that best connects the two ideas

Introductions and Conclusions

Sometimes the main weakness in a passage is a poor—

or nonexistent—introduction or conclusion An effec-tive introduction has three characteristics: It introduces the topic, presents the main idea, and establishes the style and tone An effective conclusion restates the main idea (though not in exactly the same words, espe-cially in a short essay) and provides a sense of closure

so that readers feel the topic has been sufficiently covered

A question about introductions and conclusions might look like the following:

Which of the following sentences, if added to the beginning of the essay, would most improve the introduction of the paragraph?

Unity of Ideas

As stated earlier, a paragraph is a group of sentences about the same idea Frequently a passage will include one or more sentences that stray from the main idea of the paragraph or essay To improve the unity of ideas, off-topic sentences should be deleted or moved to another more relevant section Here’s how such a ques-tion about unity might be phrased:

The deletion of which sentence would most improve the second paragraph?

Development of Ideas

Some questions will ask you to consider where a

sen-tence might best be added to further develop an idea,

or which sentence from a list might best serve to further

develop an idea The key here is to look at the logical relationships between ideas and to remember the over-all assertion → support structure of essays You might find a question like the following:

The author’s argument could best be expanded

by which of the following statements?

OR

Which of the following sentences, if added to paragraph 3, would provide the best support for the main idea?

The sample question about effective conclusions,

in “Introductions and Conclusions,” is another exam-ple of a question about developing ideas

Style

Finally, to return to the sentence level, you can proba-bly expect at least one question about stylistic matters such as word choice, tone, or level of formality Here’s

an example:

The author wishes to alter the tone of sentence

12 Which of the following revisions would most suit the overall tone of the essay?

This kind of question requires two steps First, you need to determine the overall tone of the essay Sec-ond, you need to determine which version best matches that tone

Here’s another kind of question that looks like an Improving Sentences question but isn’t about correct-ness, sentence logic, or wordiness—it’s about effective word choice

Which of the following offers the most effective revision of sentence 6 (reprinted below)?

(6) For me, volunteering has been an amazing experience.

a For me, volunteering has been just awesome.

b For me, it has been really great being a

volunteer

c For me, volunteering has been incredibly

rewarding

d I have really enjoyed volunteering.

e I have been amazed by my experience.

Only choice c improves the sentence Why?

Because incredibly rewarding is more specific and exact

than the other versions—it offers some insight into

how or why volunteering has been an amazing

experience.

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 4 0 P r a c t i c e M u l t i p l e - C h o i c e W r i t i n g Q u e s t i o n s

Identifying Sentence Errors

Each of the following sentences has four underlined words or phrases Read each sentence and determine which underlined portion, if any, has an error in grammar, usage, word choice, or idiom (standard expression) If there

is no error, select choice e No sentence has more than one error Use the answer sheet below to fill in your answer

choices for questions 1–40

ANSWER SHEET – L E A R N I N G E X P R E S S A N S W E R S H E E T –

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