GMAT Sentence Correction

The verbal section of the GMAT includes Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction.

Correcting Sentences

The sentence correction section tests your knowledge of English grammar, usage, and style. You will need to be able to use proper diction, sentence structure, and correct and effective expression in order to answer these questions.

Sentence correction questions always contain a sentence, which might be a bit long, with one part of the sentence underlined. You then get 5 versions of the the underlined section, the first of which will always be the same one as the original sentence. You have to pick the appropriate version of the section according to the following rules:

• Correct grammar
• Correct sentence structure
• Clear and concise expression
• Suitable and accurate choice of words

Important Concepts

Here is a list of a few important concepts that are often tested in GMAT sentence correction questions:

• Verb form: You need to be able to choose between simple past, past perfect, present perfect, and other grammatical verb forms. For example, you need to know the distinction between ‘eat’, ‘has eaten’, and ‘have been eating’.
• Agreement: Subject and verb must always agree. For example, the duck have eaten is wrong, since duck is singular and have is for plural subjects.
• Idioms: It’s crucial that you’re able to find the appropriate use for idioms. GMAT writers love idioms.
• Parallelism: If your sentence has sections, indicated by commas, you must make sure that they’re all parallel, and that the appropriate verbs and adjectives correspond to the appropriate subjects.
• Clarity: The best answer will always be the one that results in the sentence that is clearest. Always make sure that there’s no confusion between which subject is performaing which action, or between the subject and object in the sentence
.
• No change: In every question, the original meaning of the sentence in the question must remain intact. This means never replacing words like could with should, since this changes the meaning.

Two Example

Unlike the Tekken Series, Mortal Kombat video games have, a lot more visual violence and should therefore be censored.

1. (A) Unlike the Tekken Series, Mortal Kombat video games have, a lot more
2. (B) Unlike those in the Tekken Series, Mortal Kombat video games, have a lot more
3. (C) Unlike the Tekken Series, Mortal Kombat video games have a lot more
4. (D) Mortal Kombat video games have, unlike those in the Tekken Series, a lot more violence
5. (E) Mortal Kombat video games, unlike the Tekken Series, are having a lot more violence

Options A and B have an unnecessary coma that results in an agreement problem between the comparisons. Option D is wrong because the verb, ‘have’, must be placed after the comparison. Option E has a wrong verb form. Therefore, C is the correct option.

Reseachers have recently deduced the best workers are challenging to manage, productive, and are respective of authority.

1. (A) the best workers are challenging to manage, productive, and are
2. (B) best workers to be challenging to manage, productive, and are
3. (C) that the best workers are challenging to manage, are productive, and are
4. (D) the best workers are challenging to manage, productive, and they are
5. (E) that the best workers are challenging to manage, productive, and

The clause needs the word ‘That’, otherwise the three elements are not parallel. This is an important example of parallelism. Option C is wrong because the 3 elements are still not parallel, the ‘they are’ removes the final element from the parallelism. Option E is the correct one- note how the ‘are’ need only be used once.

Practice GMAT Sentence Correction Problems

Practice makes perfect!

GMAT Sentence Correction (5 problems), GMAT Sentence Correction Test (5 problems), GMAT Sentence Correction Practice (10 problems)

Other Verbal Section Question Types

The verbal section also includes Reading Comprehension and questions.