Some of My SC Errors on the latest MGMAT : Could be an interesting read...

Sentence correction errors
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1. The Daughters of the American Revolution, a volunteer service organization, admits as members only women who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution.

I removed word only; which was wrong; because the result sentence is different in meaning than the original one.

Lesson learnt: Make sure meaning doesn't get changed when you choose an answer.


2. Agatha Christie's travels with her archaeologist husband inspired her to write several mystery novels; travelers to Egypt can still stay at the Old Cataract Hotel, the model for the hotel in one of Christie's most famous books.

--> Here Agatha christie is a possessive noun, be alarmed when you see it, because only possessive pronouns can refer back to possessive nouns, object pronoun such as "inspired her to" may not refer to possessive nouns, hence this is incorrect.
Refer to MGMAT SC Page 55

3. The author Herman Melville and the poet Walt Whitman are icons of American literature, greatly beloved by generations past and present.

---> Restrictive and non restrictive modifiers --- the modifiers Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman are restrictive in nature, and they do not need to be set off by a pair of commas

I did a mistake when I instead of original structure, chose a structure as follows : Herman Melville the author and Walt whitman the poet, although this usage is correct, these are non restrictive modifiers and need to be separated with a proper comma in order to be grammatically correct. Need to better understand what the sentence correction question is testing.


Gyan: That Vs Which... That is logically inseparable from the sentence, Which is usually separable logically. Which is usually used for inanimate things. That, Who Whom, used for animate things.
e.g. The team that wins the game will take over first place.

4. The health commissioner said that the government had implemented strict measures to eradicate the contaminated food and, despite "it will try" to prevent the outbreak from recurring in the future.

When the future is indicated from the point of view of the past, conditional is used. In above sentence, "Had implemented" indicates, comissioner is talking about an event which has already occured and ended in past. However, it will try is a simple future tense, which is incorrect. The more correct WOULD should be used. The correct usage will be "that it would try"

5.It was not long after the 1930s commenced that such baritone singers as Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo contributed to the popularization of a type of romantic, soothing singing that came to be called...

Like vs.such as - Like always used for comparisons on the GMAT, Such as always used for giving examples on the GMAT never choose the odd one for the sake of sounding right or wrong, never trust your ear at least for SC questions. The question is trying to test is Like vs. Such as alongwith other rules of grammar, let the 2/3rd split help ya.

6. One study found that although government policy and the industrial sector in which a company operates can influence its productivity and financial strength, management decisions have at least as great an impact on a company’s performance.

The original sentence can be right many times. Also, usage of although always indicates that there should be some part of sentence which should draw comparison. However, I chose, "Decisions by management have a great impact" Here, there is no comparison being drawn,the contrast is not exposed. Also, Decisions by Management instead of Management decisions is pretty wordy.

7. The administration has increased the number of fines for mining safety violations as part of their campaign to protect miners.

I chose Amount of fines instead of Number of fines... I Thought that how can one increase the number of fines, we can increase the amount charged for the fines right? But apparently, this was the silliest mistake, even though my choice was gramatically perfect, it was wrong because the choice clearly said "Amount of fines" whereas talking of fines, they are finite and countable, so it should have been "Number of fines" too bad... Need to spend more time on the Sentence correction questions to try to see what they are testing. But I am happy because all the mistakes I made were in the toughest range.