But So Much Is Underlined! – Approaches For Dealing With Underlined Text In Sentence Correction Problems
How do you feel when you see a sentence correction with a very substantial underlined section? Overwhelmed, anxious, perhaps even a little bit angry. Maybe at this point you move to freak out mode thinking I am never going to complete this problem in 1 minute and 15 seconds (recommended average time for sentence correction problems). I have found that freaking out is never the optimal approach to any GMAT questions, so let’s identify some alternate approaches we can use to our advantage when facing a sentence correction problem with a lot underlined.
1) Lots underlined usually means lots of mistakes. When a large portion is underlined, there are almost always several mistakes in the sentence, and thus several different ways to get to the answer. Don’t feel like you have to comprehend everything that is going on in the sentence right away, but rather start with the grammatical principle with which you are most comfortable. I actually dislike problems with only a few words underlined because these problems often involve only a single issue “ and if I don’t know that particular rule I am in trouble.
2) Use your initial read of the sentence as a jumping off point. Often you may spot an error in the initial sentence. Instead of trying to completely scan all the answer choices, immediately go to this particular area in each answer choice to see if the problem still exists and eliminate accordingly.
3) Use rules that don’t require a complete understanding of the sentence first. Some rules of grammar can be applied in isolation without really fully understanding everything that is going on around them. Because it can be overwhelming to try to completely digest the sentence in cases where a lot is underlined, I try to apply these rules first to get a least a couple answer choices eliminated. Some of my favorites include pronouns (pronoun and antecedent must agree in number), subject-verb agreement, noun modifiers (must touch the noun the modify), and comparisons (the items compared must the logically and structurally similar).
4) Take clues from the non-underlined portion. As in all sentence correction problems, the underlined portion is fixed “ meaning you must change what is underlined to match this fixed portion. Be especially conscious if you see a non-underlined modifier or comparator (usually set off by a comma) at the beginning of the sentence. Take a look at the following example.
Born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrancia, the Lagrangian multiplier, developed by Joseph-Louis Lagrange, provides a strategy for finding a local optimum, a maximum or minimum, subject to equality constraints.
Based on the non-underlined portion what do you know about how the underlined portion must start?
The non-underlined portion is a modifier, so what immediately follows the comma must be the word to be modified “ in this case Joseph Louis Lagrange. I can immediately eliminate the sentence as written and any other answer choice that did not start appropriately without reading further.
5) Once an answer is eliminated, don’t go back to it. This idea applies to all sentence correction problems. If you have confidently (i.e. based on a rule of grammar and not a feeling) eliminated an answer choice, you should never look at it again. Discipline is applying this principle, however, is especially valuable in sentences with a lot underlined because it takes more time to read each answer.
While it is not possible “ time or bandwidth wise “ to completely digest all the answer choices when they are very long, if you have made some strategic eliminations following the guidelines above, these types of problems should be more approachable. For that final elimination, you may find yourself reading and digesting full answer choices.