Subject-Verb Agreement

 Every Sentence must have a subject and predicate. If one is missing the sentence is called a
fragment.

 The Sentence and Verb must agree in number.

 Eliminate the middleman, Skip the warm up.

 Prepositional Phase: Near Galway, the houses on the road are gorgeous.
 Subordinate Clause: Dependent Clause :
 Other Modifiers.

 And Vs Additive Phase.

Joe and his friends are going to beach. Plural because of and.

Joe along with Poly is going to beach. Singular because of the additive phase "Along With".

 Either Or , Neither Nor :

 Choose for the closest subject and select the verb form.

Eg: Either the Coach or the Players are going to the game. Plural because of the closest subject ie:
Players.

Eg: Either the Players or the Coach is going to the game. Singular because of the closest subject ie:
Coach.

 Collective Nouns are always Singular.

 Indefinite Pronouns.
o An indefinite pronoun is not specific about the thing it refers.
o Each, Every, Anyone, Everyone, Nobody, Somebody, Either, Neither, Whatever and Whoever.
o Indefinite Pronouns are always singular Except. SANAM Pronouns.
o SOME-ANY-NONE-ALL-MORE/MOST

 EACH And EVERY.

 Indefinite Pronouns
 But when each or every is preceded by a plural subject then the verb form used is Plural.

 Quantity Words and Phases.

 The Number of (Plural)
 A Number of (Singular).

 Subject Phrase and Clauses.
 Having good friends is ( Singular )
 Whatever they do is fine with me.(Singular)
 * Compound Sentence: A sentence containing two Independent

*Compound Subjects: more than two subjects. John and Josh drive to work.

*Compound Verbs: John drive (Verb) to work and said hello (Verb) to coworkers.

*When the word that appears after the working verb it acts as a reset button.

* A Sentence is a Run On when the coordinating conjunction is missing.

* “;” is used to combine two complete relative ideas

Manhattan 6th Edition addition

On Gmat only full sentences an well as independent clauses are acceptable

Both Sentences missing the helping verb and coordinate clauses are not acceptable

Word, before preposition is always the Subject of the subject of the sentence and everything following it, is
prepositional phrase

Pronouns
 The Antecedent Must Exist

 The Antecedent & Pronoun Must Make Sense Together

 The Antecedent & Pronoun Must Agree in Number

Singular Noun - Singular Pronoun

Plural Noun - Plural Pronoun

 The Deadly Five:

Singular: It, Its Plural: They, Them, Their

*Note: Their is always Plural never use their where singual his or her is required to be used.
  Demonstrative Pronouns: This, That, These and Those

The Demonstrative Pronouns are this, that, these, and those. You may use any of these pronouns as adjectives
in front of nouns, as we have already seen.

You may also use that or those to indicate a “New Copy” or copies of the antecedent.

The money spent by her parents is less than THAT spent by her children.

In this example, that spent by her children means the money spent by her children. Note that the two pots of money
are NOT the same. One pot of money is spent by the parents; another pot of money, spent by the children, is the New Copy. In
contrast, when you use it, they, or other personal pronouns, you mean the same actual thing as the antecedent

The money spent by her parents is more than it was expected to be.

Rule 1 :

That or those indicating a New Copy or copies must be modified. In other words, you have to add a
description to indicate how the new copy is different from the previous version.

The money spent by her parents is less than THAT SPENT bv her children.
Her company is outperforming THAT OF her competitor.

Rule 2:

The GMAT insists that any “New Copy” that or those agree in number with the previous version. If you
must change the number, repeat the noun.

Wrong: Her company is outperforming THOSE OF her competitors.

Right: Her company is outperforming THE COMPANIES OF her competitors.

Rule 3:

Do not use this or these in place of nouns. A sentence such as This is great is unacceptably
vague to the GMAT. Also, do not use that or those in place of nouns, unless you modify that
or those to make them New Copies. Instead, use it, they, or them.

Wrong: Her products are unusual; many consider THESE unique.

Right: Her products are unusual; many consider THEM unique
To understand one other wrinkle, you need to know about cases, which are grammatical roles or functions
for nouns and pronouns. There are three cases in English: subject, object, and possessive.

1) Subject pronouns can be the subjects of sentences.

I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who They arrived late.

2) Object pronouns can be the objects of verbs or prepositions.

me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom No one saw them or talked to them.

3) Possessive pronouns indicate ownership or a similar relation.

my/mine, your/yours, his, her/hers, its

our/ours, their/theirs, whose Their presence went unnoticed.

Tip:

If the intended antecedent of a single pronoun is clear (e.g., by virtue of parallelism and meaning), and if
there is no other reasonable antecedent, then don’t worry if there is an unreasonable antecedent somewhere
else in the sentence.

Right: Supernovas destroy their immediate environments in vast explosions, but by synthesizing heavy
chemical elements, THEY provide the universe with the possibility
of biochemistry-based life as we know it.

Supernovas is the subject of the first clause. The they is also in subject position in the second clause which is
parallel to the first clause. Even though there are at least two closer possible antecedents (environments and
explosions), you know that they clearly refers to supernovas. The GMAT would consider this sentence
acceptable.

If you wanted to talk about environments or explosions later on, you would need to use a phrase such as
those environments or such explosions. The subject is the most important noun in the sentence; thus, it
generally makes the best antecedent, as this very sentence demonstrates.

Every it and its must refer to the same singular antecedent. Every they, them and their must refer
to the same plural antecedent. These specific rules are respected on Sentence Correction.
Otherwise, don’t apply pronoun ambiguity unless you are backed into a corner.
 Verbs
Two Main type of Verbs

Lexical or primary Verbs & Auxiliary Verbs

Participles : Present Participle and Past Participle (Verb Tenses ) ( Modifiers )

Working verb or auxiliary verbs : Verbs which can stand without the help of any other verb like
helping verb eg. was, were, has or had

Indicative Tenses

Prefer Simple tenses in place of complex tenses .

Preset perfect.

Past Perfect.

Conditional Tenses :

 If Present then Future.

 If Past then Conditional.

Subjunctive Tenses : express a wish or a request.

Hypothetical Subjunctive:

If i were a rich boy :

If then constructions with uncertainty

Command Subjunctive.

Imperative Tenses : for Commands and requests

Conditional Tenses , Hypothetical Tenses

 Comparisons :

 Like Vs As

Like is a preposition and therefore must be followed by noun, pronoun, noun phrase, or gerunds
acting as nouns

On the other hand as can be either a preposition or a conjunction joining two clauses.

You can correctly use as to compare two clauses. Again, however, you cannot use like to
compare clauses.

Wrong: LIKE her brother DID, Ava aced the test.

Right: AS her brother DID, Ava aced the test.

The words her brother did form a clause {did is a working verb). Therefore, you must use as to
make the comparison between the two clauses

 Keep Comparisons Parallel

Omitted Words

 When comparing two things use comparative form and when comparing more than
two things use superlative form.

RUN ON Sentences :

When two independent clauses are connected with a "comma" instead of a semi-colon or a
coordinating conjunction.
 Modifiers
An Adjective only modifies a Noun or a Pronoun.

An Adverb modifies anything but a Noun.

If you spot an answer switching back and forth between the adjective and adverb forms of the
same word, ask yourself what the word is modifying. If it's modifying a noun by itself, use
the adjective form. If it's modifying anything other than a noun (or pronoun), use the adverbial
form.

 NOUN Modifier : Modifiers which modify a noun are called noun modifiers.
o Preposition - Sue placed the CAT on the couch.
o Participles : Past Participle - The CAT owned by sue is playful.
o Present Participle without commas - The CAT sleeping on the rug belongs to
Sue.

 Essential and Non Essential Modifiers

o Which Commas - Non Essential Modifiers
o Commas alone - Non Essential.
o Which alone - Essential
o That - Essential Modifiers.

 Possessive Nouns Are Not Nouns!! and if they are being modified doesn't mean that
the noun is being modified.

Eg: Happy About his raise, Bill's celebration included taking his friends out to
dinner.

Eg: Happy about his raise, Bill celebrated by taking his friends to dinner.

 Noun Modifier Markers: Relative Pronouns

Which : Things

That :

Who : People
 Whose : Both People and Thing

Whom : People

Where : Place but not metaphorical places like conditions and situations ( Use
In Which )

When: A noun even or time

 Usuage of Which!!

Example 1

The box of nails, which is nearly full, belongs to Jean : Here the noun being
modified is Box.

Noun Modifier1 Modifier2

Essential Modifier : Of Nails

Non Essential : Which is nearly full.

Placement will require essential to be placed closest to the Noun and then Non
Essential besides it.

That is why here the rule of which modifying the word just before it is being
broken.

 Participles
o Present Participle- Always end in -ing
o Past participle - may take irregular verb forms.

 Forms participles can take

o She is playing soccer. is playing = Verb form
 o Playing soccer is fun. Playing= Subject; Gerund;
Noun.
o The girl playing soccer is my friend . Playing Soccer = Noun Phrase;
Noun Modifier
o She stayed all day, playing soccer Playing.....Left = Adverbial
Modifier

until she was the only one left.

ADVERBIAL Modifier : Modifies anything except a Noun

Modifies verb, adverb, Adjectives, prepositional phrase, clauses and anything thatisn't just a

noun.

Usage of Which

Which always refers to the noun preceding it never to the whole clause.

Modifiers for Countable and Non countable Nouns

Gmat Club: https://gmatclub.com/forum/sentence-correction-modifiers-difficult-

217385.html?fl=similar

this is more a pattern than a logic thing

noun participla modifier which clause
is better than
noun which clause participle modifier.
_________________

Parallelism
Comparable sentence parts must be structurally and logically similar.

Markers of Parallelism: (Open ( Always in Center) and closed)

Marker Structure

And X and Y or X,Y,and Z

OR X or Y

Rather than X rather than Y

Both / And Both X and Y

Either / OR Either X or Y

Not / But Not X But Y

Not Only / But Also Not Only X but Also Y

From / To From X To Y

*Repeat the signal word when the marker is an open one.

Eg. I want to retire to a place where i can relax and where i pay low taxes.

Almost always, two parallel elements will be joined either by a single coordinating
conjunction or a pair of correlative conjunctions.

*Coordinating conjunction : FANBOYS

*Correlative Conjunctions : Both....and , Not only ....but also , Either....or , Neither....nor ,
So....as , Just....so too.
 Two sets of words that, like coordinating conjunctions, can by themselves set two elements in
parallel are “as well as” and “rather than.”

Subordinators: Repeat subordinators to remove ambiguity.

Wrong: I want to retire to a place WHERE I can relax AND I pay low taxes.
Right: I want to retire to a place WHERE I can relax AND WHERE I pav low taxes.

When a closed marker is used any subordinator used only applies to X element and therefore has
to repeated with the Y element .

When a closed marker is used make sure that both the parallel elements contain necessary
starting words.

Wrong: Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND WHO are not.
Right: Ralph likes BOTH THOSE WHO are popular AND THOSE WHO are not.

When an open marker is used we can divide the more than one word forms with all the
contrary actions.

Eg: The division was opening offices, hiring staff, and investing in equipment.

Parallel Elements:
Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs (Different verb tenses can be compared ), Infinitives, Participles,
Prepositional Phase, Subordinate clause.

Logic and False Parallelism:

Parallelism decides the status of lines if you want to make all the lines into main clause make
parallel all the lines if you want to make a clause subordinate don't make it parallel with the main
clause

Study parallelism with modifying phrases and clauses form Bookmarked Page(Pending).

Points To Remember

You can pair working verbs in different tenses , as long as the meaning of sentence support the
different tenses.

You can pair present and past participles .

When not sure try completing sentence with each parallel element, If the sentence doesn't work
the answer is incorrect.

Gerunds can be parallel to gerund or action nouns.

*wheat that is hardy, disease-resistant and yields more grain per acre. "" Hardy(adjective) and
disease- resistant(adjective) and that yields(verb)

************ Issue #1a: countable nouns. “Jobs” are countable, so it is correct to say “fewer
jobs”, and incorrect to say “less jobs”. (A) & (D) & (E) make this mistake

......................................

*When describing the similarities between unlike things the idiom "Compare to " is used
and when describing the difference between like things , the idiom " Compare with " is
used .

prohibiting X from Y,

Just as .......... So ( So too )

*Considered to be is unidiomatic, only use considered

consider tax breaks vital to xxxx consider tax breaks to be vital tool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsWkOkr1Qt4&list=PLuRW962mXVQeNxKu_dS9ZtGs_510JiLNx

Verbs
Two Main type of Verbs

Lexical or primary Verbs & Auxiliary Verbs

Participles : Present Participle and Past Participle (Verb Tenses ) ( Modifiers )

Working verb or auxiliary verbs : Verbs which can stand without the help of any other verb like helping verb eg. was, were, has
or had

Indicative Tenses

Prefer Simple tenses in place of complex tenses .

Preset perfect.

Past Perfect.

Conditional Tenses :

 If Present then Future.

 If Past then Conditional.

Subjunctive Tenses : express a wish or a request.

Hypothetical Subjunctive:

If i were a rich boy :

If then constructions with uncertainty

Command Subjunctive.

Imperative Tenses : for Commands and requests

Conditional Tenses , Hypothetical Tenses

Comparisons :

 Like Vs As

Like is a preposition and therefore must be followed by noun, pronoun, noun phrase, or gerunds acting as nouns

On the other hand as can be either a preposition or a conjunction joining two clauses.

You can correctly use as to compare two clauses. Again, however, you cannot use like to compare clauses.

Wrong: LIKE her brother DID, Ava aced the test.

Right: AS her brother DID, Ava aced the test.

The words her brother did form a clause {did is a working verb). Therefore, you must use as to make the
comparison between the two clauses

 Keep Comparisons Parallel

Omitted Words

 When comparing two things use comparative form and when comparing more than two things use superlative
form.

RUN ON Sentences :

When two independent clauses are connected with a "comma" instead of a semi-colon or a coordinating conjunction.