CHAPTER 14 / HOW TO ATTACK SAT WRITING QUESTIONS 505
grammar rules discussed in Chapter 15, so it’s best to
save it for the tougher questions. With this strategy,
you look at each underlined part, check whether it
contains a verb,pronoun, preposition, ormodifier,and
decide whether it is part of a listorcomparison.
If it contains a verb:
- Does it agree with its subject in person and num-
ber? If not, it contains subject-verb disagreement
(Chapter 15, Lessons 1 and 2). - Does it convey the right timeorextent? If not, it
contains a tense error(Chapter 15, Lesson 9). - Does it properly convey doubtorfactuality? If not, it
contains an error in mood(Chapter 15, Lesson 14). - If it’s a past participle, is it in the correct form?
If not, it is an irregular verb error(Chapter 15,
Lesson 13).
If it contains a pronoun:
- Is it clear what the pronoun refers to? If not, it has
anunclear antecedent(Chapter 15, Lesson 5). - Does it agree in number and person with the noun
it replaces? If not, it contains a pronoun-antecedent
disagreement(Chapter 15, Lesson 5). - Is it in the proper case, that is, subjective (I, he,
she, we, they), objective (me, him, her, us, them), or
possessive (my, your, his, her, our, their)? If not, it
contains a case error(Chapter 15, Lesson 6).
If it contains a preposition:
- Does the preposition “go with” the word or phrase it
is near? If not, it contains an idiom error(Chapter 15,
Lesson 10).
If it contains an adjective or adverb:
- Is it near the word it modifies? If not, it is a mis-
placed or dangling modifier(Chapter 15, Lessons 6,
7, and 8). - Is it in the correct form? If not, it is probably an
adverb-adjective errororcomparative form error
(Chapter 15, Lesson 12). - Does it add meaning to the sentence? If not, it is a
redundancy(Chapter 15, Lesson 12).
If it is part of a comparison:- Are the things being compared of the same kind?
If not, it is an illogical comparison (Chapter 15,
Lesson 4). - Does it properly convey whether two or more than
two items are being compared? If not, it is a com-
parisonnumber error(Chapter 15, Lesson 4). - Does it use fewer/less,number/amount, or many/
muchcorrectly? If not, it contains a countability
error(Chapter 15, Lesson 4). - Are the things being compared in the same gram-
matical form? If not, it contains a parallelism error
(Chapter 15, Lesson 3).
If it is part of a list: - Does it have the same form as the other item(s)
in the list? If not, it contains a parallelism error
(Chapter 15, Lesson 3).
If a word seems misspelled or unusual: - Does the word have the right meaning for this
context? If not, it is a diction error(Chapter 15,
Lesson 11).
Check:Don’t Fear PerfectionDon’t be afraid to pick (E) “No error” if a sen-
tence seems okay, but don’t go overboard, either.
On recent SATs, there have been anywhere
from 2 to 7 “No errors” among the 18 “error ID”
questions. The ETS tries to distribute the five
answer choices (A-E) evenly in the answer key,
so choice (E) should be right about one-fifth of
the time, on an average.