Hi all. As I have been ramping up my efforts to study for the GMAT, I had a question about sentence corrections. In particular, there seems to be a level of preoccupation with this part of the exam, and many people regard Manhattan GMAT’s book on Sentence Correction to be a “must-have.” Naturally, I have this book as well, and it is a good read. However, I wanted to know how useful it really was to know about all the grammatical rules. The reason for my inquiry is that while I notice people often saying how a lot of what the GMAT considers “grammatically correct” isn’t necessarily how things sound, I find that as long as I go with my understanding of the English language, I have been getting the vast majority of sentence correction questions correct in the Official GMAT Guide books as well as Kaplan 800 and Princeton Review. Now, I don’t necessarily know the names of every tense off the tip of my tongue, nor can I instantly recall what grammatical rules are being violated in every answer choice. That being said, I still feel that if I see something wrong with a particular answer, I can rule it out right away even if I don’t remember what the exact name of the applicable grammatical rule is. Basically, although a number of study guides say that I shouldn’t rely on my gut feeling or being able to “eyeball” errors on the sentence corrections sections, I feel like I have been able to do fine without obsessing over the plethora of grammatical rules. Am I underestimating the challenge of this exam, or is it possible that my grasp of what is grammatically correct is already inherent in my normal diction? I am trying to figure out whether I’m truly “better than average” as far as sentence corrections go, or if I am actually underestimating the challenge of the real exam (which I do not want to do). Any opinions would be helpful. I plan to take the GMAT in January so I would like to manage my time wisely. Thanks guys.
I think your assumption is fairly accurate, if you can answer the questions that’s all that matters. This was probably my highest scoring area and I didn’t study it at all beyond the Princeton Review. As long as you can do fairly well here and in the comprehension sections you’ll be fine. I think it’s easier to screw up on the quant section myself, because I read and write every day but I don’t do 8th grade math in my head…
Also, if any of you found the sentence corrections on the actual test to be much harder than practice, can you share what study sources you used? I have taken a diagnostic test in the Official Guide to the GMAT book and did not feel it was too challenging, but I’ve also heard from some people that the Official Guide book seems more targeted to people that are around the 650 score range (and that the actual exam is based on CAT format and the “tougher” questions there might not show up in the Official Guide).
I twice scored a 97 on the verbal portion of the GMAT. I really don’t think that you can do a huge amount of preparation for it. I truely believe that it will come down to your “gut” and to the knowledge of english that you’ve acquired over your lifetime. If you’re like me, and you’ve read either books or newspapers every day of your life, then your first instinct should be fine. The key to the hard questions is practice. The hard questions hide the simple grammatical rules within dense layers of words, clauses and punctuation. Do the Official Guide questions just to get used to teasing stuff out. In short, I think you’re right. Think of the GMAT as the NFL combiine. The quant part is the weight room tests, and the Verbal is the speed tests. You can improve your strength thru work, but as for speed (verbal), you either have it or you don’t. I recommend that you memorize idioms, however.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. Joemontana, was there a list of idioms that you found to be most helpful? I’m starting to put together a brief set of study notes so if you know of something concise, that would be great.
numi i just took the gmat in november and used manhattan’s sentence correction. disclaimer: i scored 95% in verbal. i second the idea that a lot of sentence correction is gut feel. i don’t think you need to memorize anything but idioms (if you’re native language is english). obviously, learning the concepts is key but who cares whether something is called present perfect or past perfect (but you still need to know the concept). the flashcards on beatthegmat.com are pretty useful. i have some other excel files/word docs with lists of idioms if you’re interested. i also think sentence correction may be the only part of the exam that you really just need to do a ton of problems for, and doing questions over and over again really helps. this is dissimilar to reading comprehension/critical reasoning where there’s not AS MUCH utility gained from doing questions over and over again (i think it’s more innate ability than practice but obviously you still need to understand how to approach these types of questions). i would also recommend the gmatter software that’s free (i think people call it the 1000 series). google gmatter. i think the manhattan practice tests have pretty good verbal questions (but too long/wordy for quant). also, i used the gmatclub challenges ($79) for math and verbal and i thought they were really helpful.
Numi, The best indicator to see where you stand is the GMATPrep software from the GMAT’s website. http://www.mba.com/mba/TaketheGMAT/ToolsToHelpYouPrepare/GMATPrepProducts/FreeGMATPrepTestPreparationSoftware.htm These are retired GMAT questions and the score is a very good indication on how well you will do on the actual exam. Otherwise from the sounds of it, you should have no issues with sentence correction.
I appreciate the advice, guys. I think that a score in the mid-700’s is a possibility for me – at least that’s what the diagnostic tests tell me – but, again, I don’t want to run into a situation where the actual exam turns out to be much harder than the sources I am using. FYI, I have already worked through the Princeton Review guide, and have also been using the Official Guide (including the additional review books for verbal and quantitative). If any of you have useful resources, would you mind sending them to porcupines AT gmail DOT com? slave, if you have that idiom list or anything else handy, I’d be much obliged if you could pass them along. ditchdigger2CFA, I got your e-mail from last week. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond yet. I was back in New York spending Thanksgiving with my folks, and just recently got back into town. I will drop you a note this weekend.
Numi: Manhatten has a list. I also found (and since deleted) some idiom lists on esnipps. It’s simple stuff (amount of/number of; if/whether etc.) but its easy to memorize and will def help.
Good stuff – thanks joemontana. I’ll take a look at that, as well as slave’s suggestions regarding the gmatter software and GMAT club practice tests.
L3 Buckaroo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @slave: due respect, but how’d you score a 95% > when you mix up your/you’re? sorry i’m not proofreading my AF posts. i know the difference.
Numi, No worries on the email. I attempted to send you the .exe of the GMATPrep software but Gmail does not like it. In any case, it’s free and it is the best indicator out there for where you stand on a GMAT score.
rename the .exe to .abc, then zip the .abc to abc.zip and send it.
Very frank opinion- I did GMAT, got 710 did well in all sections. But… if you write as per the grammatical rules, people will think you are joker. I have tried to write analyst report and when I make things parallel, correct modifier, references etc, people think I am not fluent. At least in commercial work, I think writing what you speak is better. However, when I published something in scientific international journals, they did ask for GMAT like grammar. S
solarpower03, that may be your experience. However, I think a meaningful reason why I got my jobs in equity research and private equity was because of my writing skills. Also, I speak pretty much as I would write, but with a lesser degree of formality yet with an equal attention to detail and meaning. Based on your experiences, I have to assume that perhaps those that were reading your commercial work were in fact the jokers themselves. ditchdigger2CFA, I’ll give GMATPrep a run this weekend and see how things go. I never seriously studied for my SAT’s – just did a lot of practice tests and things went fine. But I think that all the talk about how competitive it will be to get into business school next year is psyching me out a bit, so I just want to make sure I don’t leave any stone unturned this year.
Numi, I uesed the MGMAT self study plus. You may want to consider it, as it worked well for me. Another word of advice on the GMAT is get laminated sheets of paper and a dry erase marker to practise with. I’m a lefty and it took me a while to get comfortable with it. (I still think its bullsh*t that they wont let you use paper and pencils for scratch work.
I am in a simplar dilemma, but with GRE sentence completion (obviously easier than GMAT SC’s), which is lesser of a pain than Barron’s vocabulary wordlist.
Thanks mzwerner – I’ve heard that was good too. If I find my current roster of materials insufficient, I’ll definitely look into it. Did you feel it was necessary to go through all the Manhattan GMAT books, or were there one or two books that you found to be particularly essential? As I mentioned earlier, I want to do as well as I can on this test, but I don’t want to let my studies take over my life in search of 30-40 extra points (maybe I’m misinformed, but I don’t think such a point spread would be a huge deal). In other words, while I don’t want to give up any easy points, I won’t obsess over the exam as long as I do sufficiently well.
Numi, You might be right. A good idea will be to pick up some equity research report and see how many errors/ambiguities one can find using GMAT’s eight or so grammar rules. S