Meaning Helping Verbs
Watch out for helping verbs like:
May, Must, Will, Should
Meaning: Follow these rules
Word Choice: Watch out for cousins
Word Place: If word is different place than in original, watch out.
Word Match: N->V and N->Antecedent
Redundancy in time: Past, Present, Future, Yearly
Subject Verb Tricks
Hide Noun among modifiers
Hides Noun among prepositional phrases
Switches Noun with sub-ordinate clause noun
“AND”: compounds the noun
Additives: are modifiers and don’t change plurality of noun
EX: along with Polly, accompanied by, together with, as well as, including…
Ojo: Collective Nouns are singular: Army, Team, Citrus
Either Or/Neither Nor: (Closest noun to verb takes precedents)
Either/Neither: along (w/o or/nor) are singular
Indefinite Pronouns:
EX: anyone, no one, someone, whatever, whoever, everything, each, every etc… ARE USUALLY SINGULAR
but, use the rule SANAM because in these cases, it could be plural :)
SANAM: Some, Any, None, All,More/Most
In these cases, you need to use the noun within the following prepositional phrase to determine plurality.
EX: Some of the citrus was picked
EX: Some of the documents were stolen
Indefinite Rule of Thumb: More likely to be singular if have to guess.
EACH and EVERY before the noun overrule AND and is SINGULAR:
EX: Each dog and cat HAS paws.
The number of…: singular
A number of…: plural
Quantity Words and Phrases:
EX: Half of the…, The majority of the…
Treat like SANAM nouns. AKA use the noun in the
modifying phrase to select plurality.
EX: Half of the pie, is blueberry.
EX: Half of the slices, are blueberry.
Subject phrases are singular.
Having strong feet, IS a good thing. (“Having strong feet” is a subject phrase)
Subject Verb Reversal Trick:
If the sentence places the noun after the verb, they are trying to trick the reader to match that noun with a different verb. Ojo: Use the “flip it” trick to verify.
RULE OF THUMB: When in doubt, use singular.
Plural includes AND… and A number…
Plural/Singular for SANAM, Quantity Nouns (use modifying verb) and Either Or Neither Nor (closest noun plurality takes precedents).
Otherwise, it’s singular!!!!!!
Parallelism
Markers Common:
and, or, not this but that, not only this but also that, this as well as that, this rather than than, either this or that
Less Common Markers (helping verbs): like an analogy:
This is That, This was That, This represents That, This shows That, This appear to be That
Determine logical parallelism of elements within the lists.
Those that aren’t logical should not be included in the same structural list.
Prepositional phrases will either be 1 out of the list to describe both, or 2 prepositions inside the list to avoid ambiguity.
Positives and Negatives are not logically parallel, meaning that the following in WRONG: not only does it have strength but also it lacks buoyancy. (This is a strength and weakness of the item being described, yet a strength and weakness are not logically parallel. I would need to say not only does it have strength but also it has a good foundation, yet it lacks a buoyancy).
What about double stacked parallelism?
The drug [eliminates] pain and fatigue and [enhances] alertness.
Pronouns
Trap 1: Only possessive pronouns can describe a possessive antecedent.
CORRECT: Braden’s car drives fast and many consider his technique is flawless.
WRONG: Braden’s car drives fast and many consider him to be the greatest of drivers. [Notice that ‘him’ is not a possessive pronoun and therefore can not refer to ‘Braden’s’ a possessive antecedent].
Trap 2: Collective Nouns
The New York Mets (team), a herd of cows (1 group), the DNC (1 group)
Trap 3: Repeated Ambiguous Pronouns
If two nouns are both plural how in the world do we know for sure that a certain pronoun is referring to a specific antecedent? You can’t. If one noun is singular and the other is plural, we can determine, no problem. But, the trouble arises when both the nouns are of the same plurality. In this case we had just have to restate the antecedent to avoid ambiguity. (An ambiguous answer will never be correct).
Trap 4: The sentence has a pronoun, but no antecedent. This is always wrong.
EX. The park rangers say the wildfires will be damage it.
‘It’ has no antecedent, but they try to trap you by thinking ‘park’.
Trap 5:
This and These (never used as pronoun by itself. It must have a following noun) Use them or it to correct.
CORRECT: Success Engine products are high yield; many consider them unreachable.
WRONG: Success Engine products are high yield; many consider these unreachable
WRONG: Chelsy took her laptop and her books with her on the airplane because she thought she could use these to get some work done. (Using “THEM” would make this sentence correct)
CORRECT: Success Engine products are high yield; many consider these items unreachable.
vs.
That and those (new copies and must be modified to show difference between antecedent and the new copy). NOTE: GMAT requires that if the copy is different in plurality than the antecedent, then you can’t do this, you just have to repeat the antecedent.
EX.
CORRECT: Success Engine [singular] is outperforming the companies [repeat antecedent] of its competitors.
WRONG: Success Engine [singular] is outperforming those [plural] of its competitors.
Remember: It is most GMAT like to restate the antecedent in different terms [synonym or close relative] in order to remove ambiguity.
Noun Modifiers
Trap 1:
WRONG: The student works quick [adj - noun modifier] is trying to modify the verb, but a Noun modifier can only modify a noun/pronoun.
CORRECT: The student works quickly [adverb]. This adverb modifies the verb
Noun modifiers must TOUCH the noun. If there are 2 noun modifiers in the sentence, then wrap the noun/pronoun between.
Relative Pronoun Modifiers Who - people Whom - people (as direct object) whose - people or things where - place when - time period which - 'non-essential' phrase, situation, things that - 'essential' phrases and CAN'T modify people
RULE: If essential modifier, use THAT and no COMMAS
RULE: If non-essential, use WHICH with COMMAS
Verb Modifiers
Do not have to touch verb but must modify the correct verb. If there are two verbs, then you must place the verb modifier by the one that you want to modify.
WRONG: The symphony was at last performed, decades after it was composed, yesterday.
CORRECT: The symphony was last performed yesterday, decades after it was composed.
“ING” modifier
Used to describe a RESULT of some situation.
The Trap is to use ‘which’ to introduce the result, but which [noun modifier only modifies that noun it is touching, not the entire phrase before it]
WRONG: A Temple was built in Gilbert, which caused the surrounding property values to increase. [which is modifying Gilbert here…that’s not what the author intended to say].
CORRECT: A Temple was built in Gilbert, leading to an increase in property values.
CORRECT: The Temple built in Gilbert has lead to an increase in property values.
Verb Tenses, Mood and Voice
Actions that happen at different times in the past must have different verb forms.
The best part about these is that they just sound wrong.
The native speaker can pick these out quickly.
Comparisons
Markers:
Like, As, Unlike, Than
Like - compare nouns
As - Compare verb phrases
Than is for comparative and HAS to be present when comparing 2 things.
EX. More than, faster than, kinder than, taller than
Ojo: What out for comparing unlike things. Used frequently with possessives.
EX. Frank’s build is better than his brother. [Frank’s build is incorrectly being compared to ‘his brother’. The author is intending to compare Frank’s build to his brother’s (build).]
;
Semi-colons are used to connect 2 INDEPENDENT clauses; they appear once in a while on the GMAT
NOTE: A pronoun in the second clause qualifies as the noun needed to create an independent clause. See example below:
During the past decade, the labor market in France has not been operating according to free market principles; instead, ITS functioning has been stifled by various government regulations restricting the hiring and firing of workers
:
Colons are used to connect 1 INDEPENDENT clause to a further explanation of that clause: lists, music types, favorite ice-cream (NOTE: the post : clause does not have to be independent).
-
The dash can be used in place of a ,:or;. Rule of thumb here is that YOU CAN’T GO WRONG A WITH A -
Although
Although is a sub-ordinater and must be placed at the BEGINNING of the subordinate clause. This clause will obviously be a subordinate clause, thus we need to use a conjunction word ,and, or etc, to connect it to the main clause.
Between vs. Among
Between compares 2 things; among compares 3+ things.
however, nonetheless
These are conjunctive adverbs. They need to be preceded by a semicolon if separating 2 independent clauses and should be followed by a comma.
how to use equally in comparison.
“equally as smart”. NEVER use equally smart. The “as” must follow.
