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Parallel Construction


GMAT Grammar Rules - 5 Essential Topics
Categories : GMAT Verbal, Misplaced Modifiers, Parallel Construction, Pronoun Errors, Subject Verb - Agreement

Rules for GMAT GrammarTo get a good score in GMAT Sentence Correction, you don’t have to be a Grammar Expert. By focussing on few essential topics and rules of GMAT Grammar, you can improve your accuracy to 95%.

Topics that GMAT Sentence Correction section regularly ask are:

1) Subject – Verb Agreement

As the name suggests, the sentence should be constructed in such a way that subject and verb agree with noun count and usage.

It means that when you are using a singular/plural noun as the subject the verb should be used accordingly. Here is an example:

Let us (subject) takes (verb) the GMAT

Correct Usage: Let us (subject) take (verb) the GMAT

For English speakers, this example might seem too easy. But you can expect a complex sentence structure in the real test. Knewton has shared a good example:

The associate who brings cookies to work every day for his coworkers have been promised first choice of projects by the managing director

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GMAT Sentence Correction - How to Make Your Lists and Comparisons Parallel
Categories : Parallel Construction, Sentence Correction

It’s important to make sure that whenever you compare two things, those things are similar enough to make a comparison appropriate.  For example, if you and a friend are both preparing for the GMAT, but your friend has the luxury of studying full-time while you have a job and a family competing for your attention, it’s not appropriate to compare your score improvements with those of your friend.  Doing so would be an example of what is idiomatically called “comparing apples to oranges.”

The same thing is true on GMAT Sentence Correction questions.  When items are being compared, they must be “apples to apples,” or parallel.  For instance, take a look at the following example of a comparison:

Unlike most business students at her school, who attended classes full time, Carla’s schedule was so full that she could only attend part-time.

The sentence as written compares “most business students” to “Carla’s schedule.”  Schedules are things, and business students are people; this is an apples-to-oranges comparison.  In order to correct it, we should put the items being compared into parallel form, like this:

Unlike most business students at her school, who attended classes full time, Carla was so busy that she could only attend part-time.

It’s not just items being compared that need to be parallel, though; items in a list...

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GMAT Sentence Correction Strategies - Use Logic
Categories : Modifying Phrases, Logical Structure, Misplaced Modifiers, Parallel Construction, Sentence Correction

GMAT SC LogicThe single-most crucial type of Sentence Correction error, Modifiers, Comparisons, and Verb Tenses all share one thing in common: you do not  need to be an expert editor to recognize that this sentence is illogical!  The introductory phrase in this sentence, “the single-most type…” is clearly meant to describe one item, but the rest of the sentence lists three.  This does not make logical sense!  Technically you’d call this a modifier error, in that the modifying phrase to begin the sentence – recognizable because it begins the sentence, is separated by a comma, and does not include its own subject and verb (note: these aren’t essential characteristics of any modifier, but they are one surefire way to identify a commonly-occurring type of modifier in which SC errors often crop up) – does not logically modify the noun that follows.

If you want to get really technical, it is an appositive modifier (a noun phrase used to describe another noun), but the GMAT will never require you to describe the...

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