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3 Simple SAT Grammar Tips

Much of your success with the grammar questions on the SAT will come from practice. And yes, that requires time. Do as many practice questions as you can handle, eat a cookie, stretch your legs, and do some more. But if youre already feeling stressed and boredor just dont know where to beginhere are three sneaky, and common, errors to look out for: 1. Numbers and amounts: The SAT loves to trip you up on these kinds of questions. Tip: Memorize the distinction between words used for countable sets, and those used for non-countable sets. Countable words include many, fewer, and number. Example: You must have 15 items or fewer to use the express lane. For non-countable sets, you need words like less, lots, more, amount, and much. Example: There is less snow on the ground than yesterday. Bottom line? You can count grocery items; you cant count snowflakes (but if you really want to put off studying, go ahead and try). 2. Subject/verb agreement: This one might sound simple. Some errors like saying, Matt run to the storejust sound wrong. We all know that it should be Matt runs to the store. Why? Because it sounds rightand because, as a singular subject, Matt needs a singular verb. But sometimes things arent quite so straightforward. Look out for:

Complex subjects. Even if your subject is Matt, a four-time world champion body-builder who eats 17 eggwhites for breakfast and lifts weights each day for 13 hours with his teammates, you still need a singular verb. Singular subjects that seem to be pluralor plural subjects that seem to be singular. For example, words like everyone and everybody might seem plural, but they actually require singular verbs. Conjunctions in compound subjects. If you have a subject with more than one part, be careful! Subjects separated by and are always plural: Seven rats and one mouse live in the gutter. However, if the subject is separated by or, go with whatever form is closest to the verb. Either the boys or Sandra is picking me up, as opposed to, Either Sandra or the boys are picking me up.

3. Parallelism: When you have a sentence with any kind of list, make sure all the components of that list use the same grammatical construction. Once you know to look out for this error, its usually pretty easy to spot. Take a look at this sentence: She likes to knit, read, and playing rugby is also fun. The awkward clause is pretty easy to spot playing is a gerund (an ing word), while to knit and to read are infinitives. The sentence, as youve probably figured out, should read, She likes to knit, read, and play rugby. Parallelism errors might not always be as simple as that one, but as a general rule, try to make sure all elements of a sentence are in the same form.

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