Sentence Completion

Sentence correction questions test your mastery of Standard Written English. You must demonstrate your ability to recognize correct (grammatical and logical) and effective (clear, concise, and idiomatic) expression and choose the best of several suggested revisions. Each question begins with a sentence, all or part of which has been underlined. The answer choices represent different ways of rendering the underlined part. Choice (A) always repeats the original wording; the other choices offer various alternatives. About a fifth of the time, the original sentence is correct. In the other cases, the underlined part contains one or more errors. The correct choice will correct all of the errors without introducing any new mistakes.

On the GMAT, the sentence correction questions appear in the 75-minute verbal section. Within the section, they are not grouped all together. Instead, they are interspersed among the reading comprehension and critical reasoning questions.

How to Solve Sentence Completion Questions?

• Read the sentence carefully, trying to identify an error.
• If no error is apparent, ask yourself:
  • Is the sentence grammatically correct?
  • Is the sentence properly structured?
  • Does the sentence use correct diction?
  If you find one or more errors, look for an answer that makes the corrections.
• If you cannot find an error, read the answer choices. Focus on the differences
  between each choice and the original. Often, this will turn up an error that you
  overlooked.
• Eliminate choices that contain errors and choose from among those that remain.

E.g.

1. The Wallerstein study indicates that even after a decade young men and women still experience some of the effects of a divorce occurring when a child.
(A) occurring when a child
(B) occurring when children
(C) that occurred when a child
(D) that occurred when they were children
(E) that has occurred as each was a child

Solution: Choice D is best. The phrasing a divorce that occurred when they were children correctly uses the relative clause that occurred to modify a divorce and includes a pronoun and verb (they were) that refer unambiguously to their antecedent, men and women. Choice A incorrectly introduces the when... phrase with occurring, thus illogically making divorce the grammatical referent of when a child; furthermore, the singular child does not agree with the plural men and women. B replaces child with children but otherwise fails to correct A's errors of structure and logic, and C corrects only the error  created by occurring. Choice E includes an incorrect verb tense (has occurred) and wrongly replaces when with as. Also, each was does not properly refer to men and women.

2. Since 1981, when the farm depression began, the number of acres overseen by professional farm-management companies have grown from 48 million to nearly 59 million, an area that is about Colorado's size.
(A) have grown from 48 million to nearly 59 million, an area that is about Colorado's size
(B) have grown from 48 million to nearly 59 million, about the size of Colorado
(C) has grown from 48 million to nearly 59 million, an area about the size of Colorado
(D) has grown from 48 million up to nearly 59 million, an area about the size of Colorado's
(E) has grown from 48 million up to nearly 59 million, about Colorado's size

Solution: In choice C, the best answer, an area about the size of Colorado clearly describes a rough equivalence between the area of Colorado and the area overseen by the companies. In A and B, the plural verb have does not agree with the singular subject number. Choice A is also wordy, since that is can be deleted without loss of clarity. The absence of an area in B and E impairs clarity: the phrase beginning with about must modify a noun such as area that is logically equivalent to the number of acres given. In D and E up to is unidiomatic; the correct expression is from x to y. In D, the size of Colorado's is unidiomatic, since of Colorado forms a complete possessive.