SC 700-800 Questions Strategy and Material

[PhillyPhillie]

Hello Ron,

I have questions regarding 700-800 level SC questions and focusing on appropriate material to study.

I've noticed on the MGMT CATs that the upper-level SC questions generally test some more nuanced grammar topics and idioms... i.e. correlates to/with, testing the use of 'yet' as a second clause after 'not only x but also y' etc. in addition to long, convoluted sentences with misplaced/incorrect modifiers.

What is your advice on preparing for the tougher SC questions and getting through the questions quickly i.e. 1:30 or less?

Are there more nuanced areas that you have seen the GMAT test recently, i.e. punctuation, quantity, odd idioms that I should particularly focus on?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

My advice for "tougher questions" is exactly the same as my advice for all questions.

* Always read the sentence like a normal reader first"”as though you were reading a magazine or book.
Do not think about grammar at all. Just understand the exact meaning of the sentence. If there are any relationships, notice them.
"” If anything is a description, figure out what it describes.
"” If there are any parallel structures ("A and B", "bullet points", "two of the same kind of thing"), notice them.
"” For any verbs/actions, figure out who/what does them.
"” If there are pronouns, figure out exactly what they should stand for.
"” Figure out the timeframe of each action.

This sounds demanding, but it really isn't"”it's the same as normal reading.
If you were reading a magazine, and any of the above things were not clear, you wouldn't keep reading; you would go back, read the sentence again, and figure out whatever was unclear.
Same here.

* Make sure you find the big things first.
"” Parallelism
"” Agreement
"” Pronouns
"” Modifiers
"” Overall structure (run-ons/fragments)
"” Placement (if words are shifted around, put them next to the stuff they describe)

This advice doesn't change with your performance level, except in that "find the big things first" becomes more important"”there are more distractions for higher scorers. (These concepts themselves can't be made harder, so that's really the only thing they can do"”throw in more distractions.)

[RonPurewal]

Are there more nuanced areas that you have seen the GMAT test recently, i.e. punctuation, quantity, odd idioms that I should particularly focus on?

Thanks!

* Punctuation is not tested on the GMAT, and never has been.

* "Odd idioms" have not been tested for years. The only idioms now tested on the GMAT are extremely common idioms.
In other words, don't bother studying lists of idioms.
If you see a split that appears to involve an "obscure" idiom, ignore it"”it's a distraction! Look for the big themes listed above. They'll be there.

* I don't know what you mean by "quantity".

[PhillyPhillie]

Are there more nuanced areas that you have seen the GMAT test recently, i.e. punctuation, quantity, odd idioms that I should particularly focus on?

Thanks!

* Punctuation is not tested on the GMAT, and never has been.

* "Odd idioms" have not been tested for years. The only idioms now tested on the GMAT are extremely common idioms.
In other words, don't bother studying lists of idioms.
If you see a split that appears to involve an "obscure" idiom, ignore it"”it's a distraction! Look for the big themes listed above. They'll be there.

* I don't know what you mean by "quantity".

Hello Ron,

Thank you for your input. Your advice above certainly makes sense.

- Punctuation: I am referring to the use of dashes, colons, semicolons...

- Focusing on the 'big themes' for idiom sentences certainly make sense and I've seen numerous questions that ultimately hinge on the big themes, but on a MGMT CAT, a correct answer solely hinged on usage of "correlate to" vs. "correlate with"... and I thought that was somewhat 'obscure'... I've heard many well-spoken people say both (I now know the latter is correct)...

- Quantity: I am referring countable/uncountable nouns and their modifiers.

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

- Punctuation: I am referring to the use of dashes, colons, semicolons...

Again, I've never seen an official problem that depends on the use of punctuation.

Occasionally there will be problems that depend on overall sentence structure (= whether a sentence is actually a sentence, as opposed to a run-on or just a piece of a sentence).
To solve these problems, you'll sometimes have to be familiar with the basics of this punctuation. But"”
1/ Really, just the basics;
2/ It's not really a test of the punctuation, so much as a test of overall sentence structure. Don't focus your attention on the punctuation beyond the basics; if you do, you may miss out on what's actually being tested in the problem.

[RonPurewal]

- Focusing on the 'big themes' for idiom sentences certainly make sense and I've seen numerous questions that ultimately hinge on the big themes, but on a MGMT CAT, a correct answer solely hinged on usage of "correlate to" vs. "correlate with"... and I thought that was somewhat 'obscure'... I've heard many well-spoken people say both (I now know the latter is correct)...

Do you have more information on that question?
I found just one question in our database that uses that difference"”and that question can be solved with just subject-verb agreement.

If there is a question that depends on such a difference, then it needs to be edited and/or removed from the database.

Since the days of the 10th edition OG, the test has generally been limited to testing the most common idioms in the language.
Essentially, one of the main goals of the exam's creators"”throughout the whole test"”is to make memorization as useless as possible. So, when they heard that large numbers of people were beginning to memorize large numbers of idioms, they yanked all but the most common ones (= the ones there's no reason to memorize) from the test.

[RonPurewal]

- Quantity: I am referring countable/uncountable nouns and their modifiers.

These can be annoying, but, if they are tested, there will always be a very clear split.
E.g., if there's a split between "less" and "fewer", then you'll have to see each of those in some of the choices.

In other words, if you are properly focused on splits, then these quantity words shouldn't be much trouble (provided you know how they work, of course).
The trouble mainly starts when people start to just wander through chunks of words, with no particular goal, rather than looking at one single decision point at a time.