Consistency is the first thing you have to remember about verb tense. While that may sound pretty straightforward, on the SAT, it is easier to lose track of the proper tenses.
When “what sounds right” and “what is actually right” conflict, you can bet the SAT is waiting with a question to trap the unwary, often on misplaced modifiers.
The SAT Writing section is made up of four 350-450-word essays, containing eleven questions each. It tests basic grammar, big-picture grammatical issues, style, tone, and syntax. Let’s explore some basic techniques for succeeding on this section of the SAT.
What are Sentence Fragments? Sentences are made up of both a subject and a verb that tells us what the subject is doing. The exception would be commands, which aren’t tested on the SAT (study!). Fragments are incorrect because they lack a verb that describes what a subject is doing. But it’s not that straightforward, […]
In Redesigned SAT grammar, you’ll sometimes see a question type that asks you to differentiate between two words that look and/or sound very similar, but that mean something very different. Today, we have a trio of such pairs. Elicit and Illicit One of these illegal. Now I don’t mean as in jaywalking illegal, but as […]
Acing the new SAT’s Writing section comes down to three key strategies: 1) know your grammar, 2) know the test, and 3) know how to identify parts of sentences. Read on to learn what the heck that all means.
#TBT, is anyone reading this old enough to remember Schoolhouse Grammar Rock?
Take a crack at this practice set; it’s based last week’s post Sense of Grammar for Improving Sentences.
For many test-takers, these are the toughest questions in the Writing Section. You have five different versions of a sentence, each one slightly tweaked, but all sounding the same after you’ve read each one. This is the wrong strategy, but one that many test-takers automatically resort to: they read each sentence in its entirety! This is not only time-consuming, but frustrating because it gets you lost in a jumble of words.
The questions in SAT Paragraph Correction deviate from the rest of SAT Writing. The SAT throws out a big chunk of text, requiring you to mentally switch gears. Rather than obsessing over the individual components of sentences and tweaking them (like in Sentence Correction and Error ID), you’re now looking at a whole piece of writing. Learn the strategies, and you’ll be good to go.
