![\"2-9-LittleGrammar\"](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/02\/2-9-littlegrammar.png\")
While studying for the GRE Text Completion (TC) and Sentence Equivalence (SE) questions, you naturally want to study vocabulary.\u00a0 After all, that\u2019s what the test is testing, right?<\/p>\nWhile studying for the GRE Text Completion (TC) and Sentence Equivalence (SE) questions, you naturally want to study vocabulary.\u00a0 After all, that\u2019s what the test is testing, right?<\/p>\n
Yes and no.\u00a0 The GRE does test vocabulary, but it also tests your ability to analyze a sentence and divine the author\u2019s intended meaning.\u00a0 (And for those of you keeping score at home, did I use the word \u2018divine\u2019 correctly?\u00a0 Are you familiar with this less common usage?)<\/p>\n
And so, we preach<\/em> (sorry, with the word \u2018divine\u2019 earlier, I had to!) a method for TC and SE that involves identifying the Target, Clues, and Pivots in the sentence.\u00a0 All well and good, but how do you to this?\u00a0 Here\u2019s where the following limited grammar discussion should help, because although the GRE does not directly test grammar, a little grammar knowledge can be immensely helpful!<\/p>\n We begin with the core elements that every sentence contains: the subject and the verb.\u00a0 Separating the subjecting and the verb from other elements (which I will generically call descriptors) is part 1 of my TC and SE analysis.\u00a0 Part 2 is matching each descriptor to what it describes.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s see two examples.\u00a0 One is a TC example from Lesson 1, the other is a SE example from the 5 lb. Book. Example 1:<\/p>\n The director\u2019s commercially-motivated attempts to (i)_______ the imperatives of the mass marketplace were (ii)_______, as evidenced by the critical acclaim but low attendance garnered by his film.<\/p>\n Example 2:<\/p>\n The new particles produced by CERN\u2019s Large Hadron Collider are ________, lasting a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second before disintegrating into photons, quarks, or other particles.<\/p>\n (Notice what I haven\u2019t given you?\u00a0 No answer choices!\u00a0 This article is not about vocabulary, so we\u2019ll leave those for another day.)<\/p>\n What do you notice first in both examples?\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet you overlooked something very, very important!<\/p>\n Look at the commas in both examples.\u00a0 Both 1 and 2 have a single comma that breaks the sentence into two large chunks.\u00a0 Example 2 also has a set of closely spaced commas near the end.\u00a0 The single comma in both examples creates a division between the main sentence and a descriptor element.\u00a0 The closely spaced commas at the end of 2 create a list of parallel nouns.\u00a0 Today, we\u2019ll focus on the single commas.<\/p>\n I love<\/em> seeing a sentence broken into large pieces, because it gives me a very clear structural clue: what half of the sentence is actually a sentence, and what half isn\u2019t?<\/p>\n In both examples, the sentence is before the comma, which means the following half is descriptor.\u00a0 Neither \u201cas evidenced by \u2026 acclaim\u2026 but attendance\u201d nor \u201clasting \u2026 a second before disintegrating\u201d can stand alone as sentences, as there is neither a subject nor a verb in these portions of the sentence.<\/p>\n So now, let\u2019s find the actual sentence.<\/p>\n Example 1: The \u2026 attempts\u2026 were (ii) ______, \u2026<\/p>\n
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