Up Your Score (51 page)

Correct:
Paris Hilton didn’t know that some of the webcams were on.

Example 4:

All of the pizza have been eaten.

Here,
pizza
is singular, so the verb should be singular, too.

Correct:
All of the pizza has been eaten.

Rule 3: Pronoun Subjects and Objects

You must know when to use the words in the column on the left and when to use the words in the column on the right:

The words on the left are subjects, the words on the right are objects.

I
like hot dogs, but hot dogs don’t like
me
.

He
pushed Susie, so Susie kicked
him
.

She
is good enough for Grape-Nuts, but are Grape-Nuts good enough for
her
?

We
all hate the ETS, because the ETS hates
us
.

Who
killed Bozo? Bozo killed
whom
?

Example 1:

Julio and me were down by the schoolyard.

Always simplify these sentences. Does “Me was in the school-yard” sound right? No. “I was in the schoolyard.”

Correct:
Julio and I were down by the schoolyard.

Example 2:

The dog and him are eating pizza.

Does “Him is eating pizza” sound right? No. “He is eating pizza.”

Correct:
The dog and he are eating pizza.

Example 3:

The SAT Writing section was easy for Huey and he because they had read
Up Your Score
.

“The SAT Writing section was easy for he” should sound wrong to you. If it doesn’t sound wrong, then recognize that the word
he
is an object in the sentence and therefore should be
him
.

Correct:
The SAT writing section was easy for Huey and him because they had read
Up Your Score
.

Rule 4: Pronoun Consistency

Pronouns should be consistent throughout a sentence. When
one
starts with a particular pronoun,
one
should continue to use that pronoun, or a pronoun that is consistent with it, throughout
one’s
whole sentence.

Example:

The more you study for the SAT, the more one thinks about moving to Mongolia.

This sentence starts with the pronoun
you
and then ends with the pronoun
one
. This is inconsistent. It should be either:

The more
you
study for the SAT, the more
you
think about moving to Mongolia.

or:

The more
one
studies for the SAT, the more
one
thinks about moving to Mongolia.

Rule 5: Correct Tense

Make sure the time of an action is consistent. Look for key “time words” such as
when
,
while
,
as
,
after
, and so forth, and make sure the tenses make sense.

Example 1:

After he ate the newt and brushed his teeth, I will kiss him.

The problem here is that the verbs
ate
and
brushed
happened in the past, whereas
will kiss
is going to happen in the future. Change it to either:

After he eats the newt and brushes his teeth, I will kiss him.

or:

After he ate the newt and brushed his teeth, I kissed him.

Example 2:

While I was painting his feet, he had tickled me.

Presumably, he
interrupted
the feet painting with his tickling, so the sentence should read:

While I was painting his feet, he tickled me.

This makes the sentence consistent. Never mind that it’s weird—consistency is all that matters here. So, as the people in these sentences carry on with their mildly deviant activities, just go through and make sure everything is done in the proper time sequence.

Rule 6: Adjectives and Adverbs

Remember the difference between an adjective and an adverb? If not, your sixth-grade teacher will hunt you down and pinch you. The ETS likes to mix these two up.

Adjectives
describe nouns. An adjective will always make grammatical sense in the phrase

the _____ wombat (Example: the
lascivious
wombat)

Adverbs
describe verbs or adjectives or other adverbs. They usually, but not always, end in “-ly.” An adverb will always make grammatical sense in the sentence.

The wombat did it _____. (Example: The wombat did it
lasciviously.
)

Example 1:

I ran slow.

The word
slow
is an adjective. You can tell because it makes sense in the phrase “the slow wombat.” However, in Example 1, it is being used to describe the verb
ran
. This is impossible. Adjectives describe only nouns.
Adverbs
describe verbs. Use
slowly
instead.

Correct:
I ran slowly.

Example 2:

Poindexter juggles good.

Poindexter has problems. The word
good
is an adjective, but it’s being used to describe the word
juggles
, which is a verb. Again, you have to use the adverb.

Correct:
Poindexter juggles well. (Notice that
well
is an adverb even though it does not end in “-ly.”)

Example 3:

I hate lumpy fish on soporific afternoons.

The sentence is grammatically correct, not to mention worthy of analysis from a psychological perspective. If you immediately jumped on this sentence and tried to correct it, it means you’re too tense. Eat some frozen yogurt.

Another tricky aspect of adjectives and adverbs is comparison of more than one person or object. Take the adjective
juicy
. If you’re talking about only one object, you would use
juicy:
“This fruit is juicy.” If you’re comparing two objects, you would use
juicier:
“This apple is juicier than that pear.” If you’re comparing more than two objects, you would use
juiciest:
“Of the three fruits, the orange is juiciest.”

Example 4:

Dan is the older of the four athletes.

Since there are more than two objects being compared, we can’t use
older
.

Correct:
Dan is the oldest of the four athletes.

Rule 7: Parallel Construction

Ideas that are parallel (related) should be expressed in the same way.

Example 1:

I like spitting, drooling, and to slurp.

Spit, drool, and slurp are parallel activities. They should be expressed in the same way:

Correct:
I like spitting, drooling, and slurping.

Correct:
I like to spit, to drool, and to slurp.

Correct:
I like to spit, drool, and slurp.

Example 2:

You like spitting and drooling but not to slurp.

Just because you don’t like slurping does not mean that it shouldn’t be parallel with spitting and drooling, which you do like.

Correct:
You like spitting and drooling but not slurping.

Example 3:

The juicer chops vegetables, squeezes oranges, and proctors can be liquefied with it.

Chopping vegetables, squeezing oranges, and liquefying proctors are all parallel actions. They should be expressed in the same way.

Correct:
The juicer chops vegetables, squeezes oranges, and liquefies proctors.

Beware! Parallel construction is one of the ETS’s favorite tricks, and many students (who haven’t armed themselves with
Up Your Score)
have trouble catching it. Good thing it’s also one of the easiest tricks to defeat.

Rule 8: Run-on Sentences and Sentence Fragments

A run-on sentence is usually two complete sentences that are incorrectly joined by a comma instead of separated by a period or a semicolon.

Example 1:

J.P. ate the mysterious object, it was a noodle.

This is a run-on sentence. It could be broken into two sentences:

1. J.P. ate the mysterious object.

2. It was a noodle.

It could also be combined into one sentence using a semicolon: J.P. ate the mysterious object; it was a noodle.

Sentence fragments are parts of sentences that are made up to look like real sentences. They are usually next to real sentences into which they should be incorporated.

Example 2:

All the kids had rashes on their bodies. Especially those with uranium lunch boxes.

In this example, the first sentence is complete, but the second is a fragment. The two could be combined like this:

All the kids had rashes on their bodies, especially those with uranium lunch boxes.

Note:
You have to worry about run-ons or sentence fragments only when you’re working on the sentence correction or revision-in-context sections. Usage questions don’t test for run-ons or fragments.

JaJa says: The ETS has been known to concoct excessively long sentences. Sometimes it helps to cross out prepositional phrases that are only there to distract you.

Rule 9: Totally Bogus Sight Questions

These are absolutely the most ridiculous questions on the test. Including questions this ludicrous shows how deeply and utterly absurd the Evil Testing Serpent is. The questions don’t test anything that has to do with your ability to write. They don’t even test your ability to identify correct grammar. They just test whether or not you can see a single wrong or missing letter. For example:

Late in the war, the Germans,

of
prisoners go free.

If you didn’t read the sentence carefully, you (like Larry and Paul) probably selected (E). Those of us who missed this question saw the word
let
where we should have seen
left
. With the word
let
the sentence is correct. With the word
left
, it is obviously wrong. In other words, we got this question wrong because we didn’t see an
f
, not because we didn’t know the grammar. In a sense, this question tests exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to test. People who are good writers know how the sentence is supposed to sound, so they imagine that the right word is there even when it’s not. The moral of the story:
Read carefully
.