Feb 22 2010 Noooooo--You can pluck these sentence error points like daisies! I'll be brief. I promise.
172,406 responses Question of the Day Statistics Number Answered
Correct 96,315 Nice. Fun. Don't Worry. Be Happy. Snooze...
Incorrect 76,091 Auugh! Uh, oh--Let's fix this! What's up with this? (I'm a teacher, okay?) Let's get these. I'll make this short. You know brevity's not my strength. But read on! I will circle these daisies for you.
55% correct includes you!
Writing: Identifying Sentence Errors These are just like the ones on the SAT. Get to know them. Be like that Dr. House. Look for the 'sick' or 'ailing' or weak part of the sentence. The advantage you have over Dr. House is that you can see common symptoms. An extra word is often the culprit when a test question is designed to find out if you know how to make a series of words (especially verbs) parallel to one another.
Rock and Scroll on Down......
Do read the instructions each time--even if they seem familiar. This will be a style of question and answer (Q&A) on the SAT test. I am not always surprised by the statistics about how many people missed an answer, but this one did surprise me today. Only 55% of the answers were correct, so 45% (76,091) were incorrect.
The test: The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.
Me: These sentence corrections are some of the best points to pick up on a test because the reading passages are short. The reading passage is short, but the sentence is long.
Notice this is true for many of the sentences in this part of the test. They are long.
Here is a clue: Long sentences have inherent risks in construction. Look for the obvious weaknesses of long sentences. For this type of question, consider what is often wrong. Find it.
The sentences need attention to construction from the beginning all the way to the end, and the end is a long way to travel with correct construction.
Does the sentence have a subject and a verb? Long sentences often begin with an introductory phrase, and you need to spot the subject and verb.
Do they agree in number? (Early settlers considered the U.S. Army as its, their protector)
Is there a pronoun to note in agreement with antecedent (Angela put it's knife down...)
subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, tense (alert: mixture of past and present tense verbs!!!) and parallel construction.
The sentence in the Question for Today has beautiful parallel construction. Watch the verbs. In verb after verb, the construction is the same. Look at the verbs. They stream smoothly. Then, BUMP, the word 'they' is unnecessary. If you do not understand everything about this right now, know this will probably be one of the errors you encounter. Look for any extra words or verbs in a different form from the others.
When people gave up the hunter-gatherer way of life and began to cultivate the soil and grow their food, they often became less mobile, built more substantial residences, andtheydeveloped more effective means of storage.
gave,began,became,developed--all past tense--all parallel construction
Only the extra 'they' makes this sentence incorrect.
judiecarol&rocket feb 2010c
