![\"Manhattan](\"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/02\/2-21-17-blog-1.png\")
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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Last time, we talked about how to read for meaning and spot redundancy traps<\/a> on GMAT Sentence Correction.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve got another trappy SC for you; this one is from the GMATPrep\u00ae free exams. Go for it!<\/span><\/p>\n * \u201cA mixture of poems and short fiction, Jean Toomer\u2019s <\/span>Cane<\/span><\/i> has been called one of the three best novels ever written by <\/span>Black Americans\u2014the others being Richard Wright, author of <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i>, and Ralph Ellison, author of <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(A) Black Americans\u2014the others being Richard Wright, author of <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i>, and Ralph Ellison, author of <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201c(B) Black Americans\u2014including <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i> by Richard Wright and <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i> by Ralph Ellison<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(C) a Black American\u2014including Richard Wright, author of <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i>, and Ralph Ellison, author of <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201c(D) a Black American\u2014the others being Richard Wright, author of <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i>, and Ralph Ellison, author of <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201c(E) a Black American\u2014the others being Richard Wright\u2019s <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/i> and Ralph Ellison\u2019s <\/span>Invisible Man<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What did you think?<\/span><\/p>\n My first glance at the beginning of each answer choice told me something was going on with singular vs. plural: should it be <\/span>Black Americans<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>a Black American<\/span><\/i>? Keep an eye out for that as you read the original sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the language that leads into that singular vs. plural decision:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cone of the three best novels ever written by\u2026\u201d (singular or plural?)<\/span><\/p>\n It depends. Are we talking about multiple people who collaborate to write each novel? Or are we talking about three novels written by three individual authors?<\/span><\/p>\n The remainder of the sentence indicates that the latter scenario is the case, so the sentence needs to say <\/span>one of the three best novels ever written by a Black American<\/span><\/i>. Eliminate choices (A) and (B).<\/span><\/p>\n Or maybe you\u2019re not sure what to do about that issue? I confess that I\u2019m wondering whether it would be okay to use the plural <\/span>Black Americans<\/span><\/i> (even though the singular sounds better to my ear*). So let\u2019s look for something else to make sure that we\u2019re getting this right.<\/span><\/p>\n *By the way, my ear is wrong in this case.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n What else did you spot in the original sentence?<\/span><\/p>\n I know! <\/span>Being<\/span><\/i>! Did you cross off the original sentence because of that word?<\/span><\/p>\n Careful. The word <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> is very easy to use incorrectly\u2014that\u2019s why it\u2019s often wrong on GMAT problems\u2014but <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> can be used correctly in a sentence, too.<\/span><\/p>\n We have two choices for this part of the sentence: <\/span>the others being <\/span><\/i>or <\/span>including<\/span><\/i>. What\u2019s the difference?<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>comma including<\/span><\/i>** or <\/span>hyphen including<\/span><\/i> structure is another way of saying \u201cfor example,\u201d and the examples represent the noun that\u2019s just before the comma or hyphen.<\/span><\/p>\n In this case, the noun just before is <\/span>Black Americans<\/span><\/i> (or <\/span>a Black American<\/span><\/i>), so answer (B) can\u2019t be right, since novels are not people.<\/span><\/p>\n Answer (C) is okay\u2026if all you\u2019re trying to do is give a couple of examples of Black Americans. Is that what the sentence is really trying to do?<\/span><\/p>\n No, it\u2019s not. The sentence first talked about one novel that is <\/span>one of the three best novels\u2014<\/span><\/i>so, later, it should be talking about the other two novels in this group of three. We could guess that the sentence is probably trying to say that these other two Black Americans are the authors of these other two best novels\u2026but the sentence doesn\u2019t actually say that. Eliminate choice (C).<\/span><\/p>\n That leaves us with <\/span>the others being<\/span><\/i> in all three remaining choices! If you\u2019d crossed them off because you\u2019d heard that <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> is always wrong, you\u2019d have crossed off the right answer.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n Lesson learned: <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> is often wrong\u2014but not always. If you absolutely have to guess, then your odds are better if you choose an option that does not contain <\/span>being<\/span><\/i>. But only go there if you have to guess. First, deal with everything that you can in the rest of the sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n Okay, so we\u2019re stuck with <\/span>being<\/span><\/i>. Let\u2019s go back to our insight about the meaning of the sentence: First, we learn about Jean Toomer\u2019s novel <\/span>Cane<\/span><\/i>\u2014one of the three best novels ever written by a Black American. The <\/span>others<\/span><\/i>, then, are the other two <\/span>novels<\/span><\/i>, not the other two <\/span>authors<\/span><\/i>. The sentence does not claim that these are the three best writers, only that certain novels are the three best novels.<\/span><\/p>\n Answer (E) has the correct meaning: <\/span>the others <\/span><\/i>(two novels)<\/span> being<\/span><\/i> Native Son<\/span><\/i> and Invisible Man<\/span><\/i>. Answers (A) and (D) both emphasize the authors, not the novels; eliminate these choices.<\/span><\/p>\n The correct answer is (E).<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the last decade, the GMAT has done a great job of moving away from testing super obscure and nitpicky rules and more towards testing something that really matters in day-to-day writing: the meaning that the sentence is trying to convey.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of the older study material, though, still focuses more on the nitpicky stuff\u2014and if that\u2019s all you\u2019re focused on, too, then you\u2019re going to struggle with SC when you get to the real test. So start paying attention to meaning: you\u2019re looking for clear, logical, unambiguous, and non-redundant sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n **Note: <\/span>comma including<\/span><\/i> looks like a <\/span>comma \u2013ing<\/span><\/i> structure, but it isn\u2019t. <\/span>Comma including <\/span><\/i>is a noun modifier; it\u2019s an exception to the typical <\/span>comma \u2013ing<\/span><\/i> adverbial modifier structure.<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Sometimes, you need to back away from the screen a little bit and think about the overall meaning of a sentence or part of a sentence. Don\u2019t be so focused on micro-portions that you lose sight of the big picture.<\/span><\/p>\n (2) Know the difference between playing the odds and actually making a firm decision. It\u2019s true that <\/span>being<\/span><\/i> is often wrong, but it <\/span>can<\/span> be right and it can be very hard to tell the difference. My rule: ignore and deal with everything else that I know how to do. If I still have to guess from there, and only some of the remaining choices have <\/span>being<\/span><\/i>, then I\u2019ll cross those off\u2014but I know I\u2019m just playing the odds at that point.<\/span><\/p>\n (3) As you get better with handling meaning, it\u2019s really important to be able to find the core sentence. Want more practice with that skill?<\/span> Check out this series<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n * GMATPrep\u00ae questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a> absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. Last time, we talked about how to read for meaning and spot redundancy traps on GMAT Sentence Correction. I\u2019ve got another trappy SC for you; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,52871,930,2,26,10],"tags":[267,341],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-sentence-correction","category-verbal-on-gmat","tag-gmat-grammar","tag-gmat-sentence-correction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13242,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions\/13242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nKey Takeaways for Meaning in Sentence Correction<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.<\/strong> Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"