People studying for the GMAT are often completely thrown by a correct answer on a sentence correction question that just “doesn’t sound good.” In their minds they think, “there is no way that can be the correct answer – that just sounds bad.” Even if that thinking is true that does not mean that the correct answer won’t sound just downright bad! Making right answers sound bad is a deliberate tactic on the part of the GMAT writers and in this piece I will explain why the do it, how I know they do it, and what you can do about it!
I often ask people, “What do you think is a defining characteristic of hard questions?” Most people often respond with some of the things that tend to happen on harder questions but the simple answer is that from the point of view of the GMAT writers the single defining characteristic common to all hard questions (Quant and Verbal) is that hard questions are ones that most people get wrong! If most people get a particular question right (even if the writers predicted that most would get it wrong), it is, by definition, not a hard question. However, because of the scoring algorithm and the way the GMAT is scored, there need to be very hard questions (in other words, questions that most people would get wrong). But how do the GMAT writers write a sentence correction question that most people will get wrong? Well, they obviously have a variety of tactics, but one of the most common and fundamental is that to make a question hard the correct answer can’t be obviously correct – if it were then most people would recognize it as correct and pick it. So the writers often deliberately write the correct answer on a sentence correction question to make it unfamiliar, awkward, even unpalatable.
Recently, while tutoring someone, I came across a sentence that really proved for me that this is a deliberate act on the part of the test writers. I pretty much knew it already, but I thought it was really interesting to see this deliberate tinkering in action. The sentence in question comes from the GMAT Prep exams. I had seen the sentence many times before, but this time I noticed that the correct answer was a little different from the one I had seen before – it was worse! So I looked into it and discovered that the sentence was in fact different in previous versions of the GMAT Prep software. After digging a little deeper I found what appears to be the original version of the sentence (from the New York Times). Low and behold we have pretty clear evidence of how the GMAT writers take a sentence, tweak it to make it less familiar and appealing, and then, when that isn’t enough, tweak it even further to make it borderline terrible (albeit correct), thereby increasing the level of difficulty even further.
So let’s start with what I believe to be the original sentence (again, from the New York Times):
“Also, unlike many other frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles to adults in one year, the high-elevation frogs take three to four years to reach adulthood, so they are restricted to deeper bodies of water that do not dry up in summer or freeze solid in winter.”
Ok, so standard comparison sentence and one that sounds pretty good in my opinion. Now let’s see how the GMAT writers changed the correct version of this sentence to make it less appealing and therefore harder:
Unlike frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles into adults within a one-year period, mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years to reach adulthood, and so they are restricted to deeper bodies of water that do not dry up in summer or freeze solid in winter.
Now, that sentence may not look that different to you, and it isn’t that different. But there are some subtle changes that make it more likely to be passed over by a test taker. The “mountain yellow-legged frogs” bit is just there because without it we don’t have the context to know what the sentence is talking about. But the less obvious and more important change is from the “so they are restricted” to the “and so they are restricted” version. Having done this question with many people I know that some people do not pick the correct answer because they believe that you can’t have two conjunctions (the “and” and the “so”) right next to each other. Indeed that usage is not that common and is therefore unfamiliar to many people, but it is acceptable and is not wrong. And since it is not wrong, it must be right!
To me that usage is not that unappealing, but what caught my eye with this sentence recently is how it was changed again to make it obviously less appealing and therefore more difficult. The most recent version on the GMAT Prep software changes the underlined part (in the correct answer) to:
“mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years to reach adulthood, with the result that they are”
Wow. I mean, maybe you readers don’t get as excited about this as I do, but my reaction is wow!!! That “with the result that they are” is pretty bad. That type of construction would typically be part of the wrong answer on most GMAT sentence correction questions. It is just not good! Here’s the thing. As unappealing as that construction is, it is not wrong! So I might initially disfavor that answer choice when I see it but I would not outright eliminate it. And on this particular question it is the right answer because the other answer choices just have other things that are definitely wrong with them.
Anyway, this is about as clear an indication as I have ever seen of how the GMAT writers try to ramp up the level of difficulty on Sentence Correction by purposely tweaking correct answers to make them unfamiliar, awkward, or even downright unappealing. So what can you do with this newfound knowledge?
The first thing is that you cannot eliminate answers because you think they sound “bad.” Wrong answers are wrong because there is something concrete wrong with them (either grammatically or on more of a logic/meaning level). So you might want to “disfavor” an answer that sounds awkward or unfamiliar, but I would not outright eliminate it. Answers are not usually wrong just because they are awkward. If an answer is absolutely hopelessly awkward to the point that it is flat out incorrect English grammar than that may be enough but usually there will be other things wrong beyond that.
It may also help you to EXPECT that the correct answer may sound a little bit off. That will be especially true on harder questions. Again there is a difference between unfamiliar or a little awkward on the one hand and hopelessly awkward or completely unidiomatic on the other. As you practice GMAT Sentence Correction questions try to learn where that dividing line sits. And again, worse case scenario, just leave the answer in play and come back to it at the end. If 2 answers are exactly the same and one is much wordier and awkward then it will be wrong. But if one answer is a little awkward but more logical and the other answer sounds better but has a concrete grammatical error that you can identify or even a logic/meaning issue, the more awkward answer will be correct.