{"id":18633,"date":"2020-02-12T21:10:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T21:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/?p=18633"},"modified":"2020-02-21T13:22:11","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T13:22:11","slug":"im-bad-at-grammar-and-other-lies-you-tell-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/blog\/im-bad-at-grammar-and-other-lies-you-tell-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m Bad at Grammar” And Other Lies You Tell Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GMAT<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest, when I started studying for the GMAT, I couldn\u2019t tell the difference between an adjective and a verb. If you asked what my biggest weakness was, I would absolutely have said \u201cGrammar. I\u2019m awful at it.\u201d But I was wrong, and if you think you\u2019re bad at grammar, there\u2019s a good chance you are wrong too.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The GMAT Grammar You Know<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The grammar you know is largely instinctual at this point. When you hear the sentence:<\/span><\/p>\n

The history of the Mayan people are rich and varied, but it\u2019s interesting<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

you should notice that something is wrong. You may have to say it aloud, but something will hit your ear wrong, even if you don\u2019t know what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

This instinct comes from decades of knowing and using correct grammar. You know Subject-Verb Agreement; <\/span>The history…IS rich<\/span><\/i> because <\/span>history <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>are both singular. The inclusion of the word <\/span>but<\/span><\/i> distorts the sentence meaning. It implies there\u2019s some kind of contrast, but the sentence is only discussing positive traits; why would there be a contrast? A more correct sentence would be:<\/span><\/p>\n

The history of the Mayan people is rich and varied, as well as interesting<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the grammar tested on the GMAT is grammar you are already completely comfortable with. The difference is that in your day-to-day life, you can get away with not thinking about it. In a testing situation, with the pressure on, you\u2019re trying to put a name to concepts you haven\u2019t directly considered in years. You\u2019re likely to second guess yourself, though there are still probably many Sentence Correction questions you will get right just by ear.<\/span><\/p>\n

As you study, note which concepts you tend to get right by ear. That way, when you know that rule is being tested, you can feel more confident in trusting your instincts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The GMAT Grammar You Don\u2019t Know<\/strong><\/h3>\n

That said, there is grammar that shows up on the GMAT that, if you\u2019ve ever learned it, you\u2019ve probably forgotten. To master these rules, you\u2019ll have to learn and practice them. This is incredibly common, and yet I see students get extremely discouraged by this process. It\u2019s as if not naturally knowing the nuances of parallelism means your English is poor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Luckily, this is simply not true. There are a finite number of rules that you\u2019ll need to master, almost all of which are predictable. Modifiers, parallelism, and perhaps a few verb tenses are some fairly common ones, but everyone\u2019s list will be a little different. It\u2019s helpful to understand that there are several grammatical rules that the GMAT considers absolute, but would be completely unnecessary in spoken English.<\/span><\/p>\n

I often get students whose native language is not English concerned that they will have significant difficulties with Sentence Correction. However, as long as those students speak English fluently, I find they are often some of the stronger SC students. Unlike native speakers, people who learn English as adults have had to consider grammatical rules recently, making it somewhat easier to recall and implement them on test day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Applying it to GMAT Sentence Correction<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Why is sentence correction so hard if you are actually good at grammar? Because the sentences test things in very specific ways. If someone were to point to a clause and ask you to position it so that the sentence has the right emphasis, you likely wouldn\u2019t have too much of a problem. Try it here. Insert the clause <\/span>considering whether you are taking sufficient care of yourself<\/span><\/i> into the below sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to moisturize your hands daily, not only because of the hydrating effect moisturizers have, but also because it encourages you to take note of your hygiene routine.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange clause in a detailed sentence that you have no prior familiarity with. However, the most logical place for that clause is at the end, making the sentence:<\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to moisturize your hands daily, not only because of the hydrating effect moisturizers have, but also because it encourages you to take note of your hygiene routine considering whether you are taking sufficient care of yourself .<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A sentence correction problem, however, won\u2019t directly point out what you should focus on. Without knowing which rules to consider, there are simply too many grammatical restrictions to consider all of them in only a minute. The fix? Create an SC process that enables you to decode each question. It\u2019s possible to read the original sentence with the foreknowledge of what is most likely being tested and where you should concentrate your energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

To sum up, you have most of the content knowledge you need. There are a few new rules to learn, but they\u2019re minimal. Your focus should be on learning how to bring your innate knowledge to the front of your mind and making logical decisions based in a high stress testing scenario.<\/span><\/p>\n

UP NEXT:\u00a0<\/strong>“I’m Bad at Math” And Other Lies You Tell Yourself<\/a><\/p>\n

You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free! We\u2019re not kidding. <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\"emily<\/p>\n

Emily Madan<\/i><\/b><\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor located in Philadelphia, Pa. <\/i><\/b>She has a master’s degree in chemistry and tries to approach the GMAT and LSAT from a scientific perspective. These tests are puzzles with patterns that students can be taught to find. She has been teaching test prep for over ten years, scoring a 770 on the GMAT and 177 on the LSAT. <\/span><\/i>Check out Emily\u2019s upcoming LSAT courses here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll be honest, when I started studying for the GMAT, I couldn\u2019t tell the difference between an adjective and a verb. If you asked what my biggest weakness was, I would absolutely have said \u201cGrammar. I\u2019m awful at it.\u201d But I was wrong, and if you think you\u2019re bad at grammar, there\u2019s a good chance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52871],"tags":[267,380],"yst_prominent_words":[53635,57538,53681,57539,57551,57528,57527,57546,57544,57530,57548,57543,57547,57542,57529,53674,53669,57550,57549,57545],"class_list":["post-18633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat-strategies","tag-gmat-grammar","tag-gmat-verbal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18633","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\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18633"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18642,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18633\/revisions\/18642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18633"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}