高等英语考试中攻克句子改错题,最全的语法详解

should be rewritten in a more compact form in which all the different

components of the sentence align, or flow together, correctly (more on

parallelism below).

Even if you don’t come up with the specific term wordiness, you might have thesense that something about the underlined part is vague and a bit convoluted.It’s fine if you can’t think of the exact term that describes the problem. A general sense that something is wrong will go a long way. Just detecting the presence of an error allows you to cut answer choice A, which tips the guessingodds in your favor. More on that in step 2.

Step 2: If you find an error, eliminate A.

If you’re certain that there’s an error somewhere in the underlined part of the sentence, you can eliminate A since A always repeats the underlined part wordfor word. Again, you won’t need to know the exact term for the error in order toeliminate A.

The fine art of A elimination gives you a great advantage on Improving

Sentences questions. Here’s why: Cutting A means something more than just “one down, four to go.” Even if the other four answers look like gibberish to you,cutting A gives you the green light to guess. As we explain in the introduction tothis book, the SAT does not contain a guessing “penalty.” The test is set up todiscourage totally random guessing, but to reward educated guessing. If you can eliminate even one answer choice, the answer you choose becomes an educated guess—tipping the odds in your favor.

Step 3: Before you look at the answer choices, figure out how to fix theerror.

Once you’ve figured out the problem in the underlined part of the sentence, sayto yourself (silently—you don’t want to reveal your genius to other test-takersin the room): “This would be a better sentence if it read something like Jenna was awarded the medal not for her academic success or her skill on the soccerfield, but for participating in gym class.” That version conveys the right

information, but doesn’t take up unnecessary space.