Boost Your GMAT Score by Mastering Sentence Correction

This tip for improving your GMAT score was provided by David Newland at Veritas Prep.

Modifiers are key to mastering sentence correction. Quickly identifying, analyzing, applying, and discarding modifiers is essential to peak performance.

At Veritas Prep we have a rule called “Use it or Lose it: Modifiers.” Essentially, this rule means that when you see a modifier you should either “use” that modifier to eliminate an answer choice (because the modifier is misplaced and therefore makes the sentence illogical) or you should “lose” the modifier by ignoring it.

If a modifier is used correctly and therefore does not allow you to eliminate an answer choice, then you should almost always ignore the modifier and concentrate on the rest of the sentence.

One type of modifier, prepositions, almost never helps you to eliminate an answer choice because, as a general rule, prepositions are not misplaced on the GMAT. What prepositions are really good at is cluttering up a sentence. Prepositions are especially good at obscuring the true subject of the sentence and creating problems with subject-verb agreement. For these reasons, you should learn to “identify and ignore” prepositions.

Identifying Prepositions: In the vast majority of uses, prepositions are the glue that attaches a noun, pronoun, or gerund to a sentence. Prepositions are usually considered “relational” because they place the sentence in a particular place or time.

Examples (prepositions in italics):

Josh drove his mother to the grocery store.
At midnight, the party was just getting started.
During the race, he thought he might win.

He will finish his MBA applications after the holidays.

The most commonly used prepositions in the English language are:
As, at, above, by, below, between, during, for, from, in, into, of, on, out, over, to, and with.

Ignore Prepositions. The main reason to identify prepositions is to ignore them. Sentence correction should be a process of elimination, with each incorrect answer eliminated for a particular reason. Because prepositions are almost never misplaced and cannot help you eliminate answer choices, they should initially be ignored.

Notice how the prepositions (in italics) clutter up the sentence in this example from the Official Guide for GMAT Review 13th edition.

“Fossils of the arm of a sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on the Greater Antilles Islands. “

Without the prepositions the sentence becomes, “Fossils … found in Puerto Rico … have been dated … making the sloth the earliest known mammal.”

You can see that without the prepositions, the subject of the sentence, “fossils,” is clearly paired with the correct verb “have been dated.” Ignoring the prepositions does not change the grammar or logic of the sentence, but it does make it easier to spot any errors.

Prepositions are even ignored by test-makers when they create sentences. Normally, two types of modifiers, the relative clause and the appositive phrase, have a very specific rule that they must touch the nouns they modify. But even this grammar rule ignores prepositions, which can be disregarded when these modifiers are placed. Here are two examples of sentences with modifying phrases that ignore the preposition (in italics).

1) A Union general during the Civil War, Abner Doubleday, is credited with having invented the modern game of baseball.

2) An extract of the plant, which is used in treating many illnesses, is grown in Africa.

In the first example, “A Union general” is modified by the appositive “Abner Doubleday.” Normally the modifier would need to touch what it modifies, but the preposition “during the Civil War” is simply ignored. The modifier reaches back across the preposition and modifies “a Union general.” In the second example the relative clause, “which is used in treating many illnesses,” also ignores the preposition and instead modifies “an extract.”

Prepositions serve to give you more information about the circumstances of an event. They place the sentence in a context of place and time. Inn terms of grammar and logic, however, they are rarely necessary and can initially be disregarded. If you can learn to “identify and ignore” prepositions you will be on your way to eliminating the clutter and mastering the art of sentence correction.

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