***Sentence Correction Algorithm***

[Guest]

I was wondering if any of you sentence correction experts are interested in helping me put together a SC algorithm. I've done tons of SC questions and they seem formulaic and beatable.

The goal of this project is to have a set process that we can apply to each SC problem. For example, 90% of the SC questions that I've completed have differences in the first 3 or 4 words of each answer choice.

Here is a super easy example that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about: (from prepfortests.com)

Developing countries have much to lose when one of their neighbors experiences a financial crisis, because their own financial systems are often more fragile, and therefore more susceptible to contagion, than of industrialized states.

A. than of
B. than those of
C. than is true of
D. compared to
E. compared with


Here's how I imagine the algorithm:

1) Categorize the answer choices (ABC) & (DE)

2) Eliminate all middlemen and parts of the sentence that aren't necessary


3) Identify which rule is being tested for the selection of the first word.

i. I choose (ABC) because the word "than" correctly completes a comparison idiom "More X than Y"

4) Rewrite the sentence in long form so that what is being compared is abundantly clear and parallel.

Developing countries have much to lose when one of their neighbors experiences a financial crisis because their own financial systems are often more fragile than the financial systems of industrialized states.

5) Evaluate which answer choice can best replace the underlined words in the new sentence.

6) Choose B because the pronoun "those" clearly replaces the words "the financial systems".

[StaceyKoprince]

Nice idea - some of what you've got down below is the process we teach in our classes. It is definitely important to have an efficient process for these problems.

1) You will always find at least one difference at the beginning of the underline and at least one difference at the end. So, actually, you will find that 100%, not just 90%, of the SC questions have at least one difference in the first 3 or 4 words, because there's always at least one difference on the first word (not in every choice, but in at least one of the choices). :)

2) Please don't use asterisks in your subject header. We use asterisks to note posts that are scheduled to get deleted because they don't have a proper source cited. So (unless you want your post mistakenly deleted), avoid the asterisks in the subject line! Thanks!