[writetotanveer]

Reducing a sentence by blotting out or ignoring the unnecessary part proves to be highly effective in sentences which are long and unnecessary wordy. For every GMAT aspirant, the habit of reducing sentences should form a part of sentence correction techniques. After understanding what the sentence means, a student can reduce the sentence to find grammatical errors (if any) in it.
What are parts that you can remove from a sentence without causing much change in the sentence? The list is long and depends mostly depends on your intuitive understanding but given below are some of the parts you can remove.
□ Nouns apart from the subject.
Original Form- “A calendar stick carved centuries ago by the Winnebago tribe may provide…”
Reduced Form-“A calendar stick may provide…”
Original Form- “A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount…”
Reduced Form-“A 1972 agreement reduced the amount…”
□ Modifiers.
Original Form-“A controversial figure throughout most of his public life, the Black leader Marcus Garvey advocated that some Blacks return
Reduced Form- Marcus Garvey advocated that some Blacks return
□ Information between two commas.
Original Form- A new phenomena, which is visible at Managua’s major intersections, are waves of vendors and beggars, which include many children and mob cars at the stoplights.
Reduced Form-A new phenomena are waves of vendors and beggars, which include many children and mob cars at the stoplights.
In this respect, be on lookout for information that is lying between two commas and that beginning with a ‘which’.
Some more examples of Sentence Reduction
1. Original Form-Although the Supreme Court ruled as long ago as 1880 that Blacks could not be excluded outright from jury service, nearly a century of case-by-case adjudication has been necessary to develop and enforce the principle that all juries must be drawn from “a fair cross section of the community.”
Unnecessary part:Although the Supreme Court ruled as long ago as 1880 that Blacks could not be excluded outright from jury service
Reduced Form:Nearly a century of case-by-case adjudication…
2. Original Form: In theory, international civil servants at the United Nations are prohibited from continuing to draw salaries from their own governments; in practice, however, some governments merely substitute living allowances for their employees’ paychecks, assigned by them to the United Nations.
Unnecessary part: In theory, international civil servants at the United Nations are prohibited from continuing to draw salaries from their own governments; in practice, however,
Reduced Form:Some governments merely substitute living allowances..
Now let’s see some examples of applying this technique.
3. A firm that specializes in the analysis of handwriting claims from a one-page writing sample that it can assess more than three hundred personality traits, including enthusiasm, imagination, and ambition.
(A) from a one-page writing sample that it can assess
(B) from a one-page writing sample it has the ability of assessing
(C) the ability, from a one-page writing sample, of assessing
(D) to be able, from a one-page writing sample, to assess
(E) being able to assess, from a one-page writing sample,
Reduced Sentence: A firm claims…
Let’s go further and try to fit the options-
(A) A firm claims from a one-page writing sample that it can assess
(B) A firm claims from a one-page writing sample it has the ability of assessing
(C) A firm claims the ability, from a one-page writing sample, of assessing
(D) A firm claims to be able, from a one-page writing sample, to assess
(E) A firm claims being able to assess, from a one-page writing sample,
Now can you get the answer? Yes you can. Only the beginning of D will come after this.
Here’s some more-
4. A huge flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, the Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(A) believed to be
(B) and that is believed to be
(C) and it is believed to have been
(D) which was, it is believed,
(E) which is believed to be
Reduced Sentence: The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet,
Let’s fit the options now
(A) The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(B) The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, and that is believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(C) The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, and it is believed to have been the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(D) The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, which was, it is believed, the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(E) The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, which is believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
A little knowledge of modifiers will tell you that only beginning of C will form the continuation of the sentence.
5. According to Interstudy, a nonprofit organization that studies health maintenance organizations (HMO’s), they estimate that, in comparison to last year, when only 36 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s was profitable, this year 73 percent will be.
(A) they estimate that, in comparison to last year, when only 36 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s was profitable, this year 73 percent will be
(B) compared to only 36 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s being profitable last year, they estimate 73 percent would be this year
(C) only 36 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s were profitable last year; it estimates that this year 73 percent will be
(D) it estimates 73 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s would be profitable this year; last year that was only 36 percent.
(E) only 36 percent of the nation’s 607 HMO’s last year were profitable, whereas they estimate it this year to be 73 percent
The sentence should read like- According to Interstudy, …...,
Now let’s try the beginning of each option:
(A) According to Interstudy, they estimate that..
(B) According to Interstudy, compared to only..
(C) According to Interstudy, only 36 percent..
(D) According to Interstudy, it estimates..
(E) According to Interstudy, only 36 percent..
Only beginnings of C and E sound good. Sentence E has ‘they’ in it, which cannot refer to Interstudy. Hence, C is the answer.
6. According to scientists at the University of California, the pattern of changes that have occurred in human DNA over the millennia indicate the possibility that everyone alive today might be descended from a single female ancestor who lived in Africa sometime between 140,000 and 280,000 years ago.
(A) indicate the possibility that everyone alive today might be descended from a single female ancestor who
(B) indicate that everyone alive today might possibly be a descendant of a single female ancestor who had
(C) may indicate that everyone alive today has descended from a single female ancestor who had
(D) indicates that everyone alive today may be a descendant of a single female ancestor who
(E) indicates that everyone alive today might be a descendant from a single female ancestor who
The Sentence can be cleaned to read as “According to the scientists, the pattern….”
Now let’s fit the beginning of each option
(A) According to the scientists, the pattern indicate the..
(B) According to the scientists, the pattern indicate that..
(C) According to the scientists, the pattern may indicate..
(D) According to the scientists, the pattern indicates that..
(E) According to the scientists, the pattern indicates that..
Since pattern is singular only option D and E are left as they use ‘indicates’. The correct usage is “descendant of” and hence D is correct.

Source : TotalGadha

[writetotanveer]

adj. recondite

(a)perfectly clean; correct; pure(b)shabby in appearance; untidy; sloppy(c)traditional; common; routine; customary; formal(d)hard to understand; concealed; deep; obscure; profound

adj. bestial

(a)submissive; unassertive; compliant; indifferent(b)fruitful; plentiful; abundant; productive(c)rising or tending to rise again; experiencing revival(d)having the qualities of a beast; brutal; barbaric

adj. hoary

(a)situation calling for immediate attention; needing more than is reasonable; pressing; urgent(b)fearless; bold; impudent(c)whitened by age; old; ancient(d)idealistic; impractical; not amorous not sensual


adj. lecherous

(a)having a saw-toothed edge(b)having to do with verbal communication; artificial eloquence; bombastic(c)impure in thought and act; lustful(d)happy; cheerful; genial; gay; jolly; mirthful


adj. detached

(a)discolored, as if bruised; extremely angry; furious(b)inconvenient; uncomfortable(c)foolishly and tearfully sentimental; weepy; emotional(d)separated; not interested; standing alone; impartial; objective; aloof



adj. ominous

(a)threatening; foreboding(b)extravagant; ornate; embellished(c)developed or matured earlier than usual(d)with passionate or intense feelings; fervent; zealous; enthusiastic

adj. gregarious

(a)lazy; sluggish; slow(b)kind; generous(c)fond of the company of others; sociable(d)abundant; in great quantities; plentiful; bountiful


adj. mercenary

(a)having a saw-toothed edge(b)working or done for payment only; hired for service(c)abrupt in manner or speech; curt; rude; unpleasant(d)concealing; sly; cunning; deceptive; tricky

adj. orthodox

(a)traditional; accepted; conservative(b)emphasizing minutiae or form in scholarship or teaching; strict; meticulous(c)picking from various possibilities; made up of material from various sources; diverse; heterogeneous(d)disagreeable to the sense of hearing; harsh; hoarse; gruff; noisy; rowdy; rasping

adj. precarious

(a)lacking warmth, interest, enthusiasm; lukewarm(b)liable to be mistaken or erroneous(c)depending upon another; risky, uncertain; unstable; dangerous(d)timid; lacking self-confidence; shy

[chango]

In the world of GMAT, there is sumthng called spidey's notes ..... it is considered a panacea for all the verbal blues !! I am attaching it here ... plz download

make sure you spend a lot of time in not just mugging up the rules but understanding them minutely. Friends you have got to understand that the verbal portion of CAT has faced a lot of wrath which was uncalled for. I still stand by my words that it was NOT as flawed as it was potrayed to be by many. Except just a few RC questions and two or three F,I,J ; it was a paper completely based on the GMAT format (though not executed in the right way as in GMAT you are supposed to attempt every qs and every subsequent correct answer decides ur score and hence accuracy matters but in CAT accuracy went for a toss !! ... people with less than 50 % accuracy made it to the IIMs and thats the whole reason why LUCK word has been associated with it...coz people with less attempt and greater accuracy dint have much to take back home and ppl who blindly attempted played heavily on luck)..... Before retaliating to this view point of mine, its my earnest request that solve GMAT questions, understand the basic line of thought of the GMAT question setters and THEN solve the paragraph qs of CAT 2006 ... trust me you would know exactly what i am talking about ( by no means is it an all fart no shit feedback as it is coming from a guy who has scored 720 in his GMAT and 99.80 in CAT '06 VA with a 73.33 % accuracy .... no i hv no reasons to flaunt BUT its a fact that people listen more to performers .... so if my score helps you in paying more attention to the words spoken, well so be it. ) Also do keep a tab on your accuracy; CAT has always paid a lot of emphasis on it sans this year ... and as we all agree on one thing that it was a flawed paper (maybe for our own different reasons) we can very well expect them to come out with a much better paper this year. SO do NOT neglect accuracy. If CAT goes back to a 2 hour game (which i think they would and they had already mentioned it last yr. that 2.5 hours is not a permanent change) then accuracy will be of utmost importance !

Coming back to the verbal prep ...... also download this official software for GMAT practice .... along with Sentence Correction and RC you will also get a very good set of Critical Reasoning qs which hv a high prob. of occurrence this yr. Also GMAT Official Guide 10 and 11 are awesome to say the least !! .... Official Guide 10 is freely avail. online and that would suffice if you cannot arrange OG 11. People plz for God's sake DO NOT join any coaching insti for verbal ... it will never ever help you !! All it can do is give you some tips here n there but majority (and its a BIG majority) of the work has to be done by you alone.

Before i sign off.... plz remember that the whole verbal portion is NOT english by ne chance .... yes it is not !!! its simply, truly, plainly LOGIC ! LOGIC !! LOGIC !!! ........ so stop cribbing that your english is not good or that english was never your first language ... coz if you can develop your logic in quant and DI so can you in VA as well. All it needs is smart work and a simple logical line of thought. I would go as far as asking you not to learn a single word for your CAT prep.. instead read and read and read articles .... but then a good vocab nvr hurts. Well i never sat down with all those TIME word-cards or those vocab accelerators which were more of vocab brakes for me !!!

One thing very important for the verbal section is the identification of 'garbage' .... think of any option which has garbage in it and follow the GIGO rule ... garbage in garbage out !! ... just throw that option away (had asked tati around 6-7 months back to throw the garbage away emphatically and with full confidence after abusing it and then crossing that option out with the pencil; always helps your confidence level !! ).... what i mean is there will be options which will be completely 'out of the scope' of the context (be it RC, passage completions or nethng else) ... those are the garbages ! ..... follow simple rules and work on GMAT critical reasoning qs and you would know what i mean by the 'garbages' ..... feel free to PM or scrap me on orkut to identify the garbages . once you start facing the real qs and work on it diligently, knowing not only why you got a qs wrong but also 'how the hell did i get this one right'? , garbages will b a cake walk for u


Rock On

Ace your Verbal !!!

[writetotanveer]

Originally Posted by chango

In the world of GMAT, there is sumthng called spidey's notes ..... it is considered a panacea for all the verbal blues !! I am attaching it here ... plz download


Ace your Verbal !!!

Brilliant Analysis Chango!!

We look forward to more of your inputs..!!!
Regards
Tanveer

p.s Also looking fwd to your posts on "Life @ IIFT" thread..

[ashishyahoo]

Originally Posted by chango

In the world of GMAT, there is sumthng called spidey's notes ..... it is considered a panacea for all the verbal blues !! I am attaching it here ... plz download

<snip>


Rock On

Ace your Verbal !!!

I must say dat Chango has summed up every bit of the CAT 2006 verbal section. True to words, it has been exactly as he has said it. And the way to go about tackling such a section too, is exactly as he puts it - logic, GIGO -- fantastic - mind blowing... nicely put in Chango

Something I want to add - leave one element out of the exam hall when u take CAT 2007 - or any other test having a 'kind-of' ambiguous verbal element inside it... - dat of 'not being able to make it due to 'bad luck' ' , or rather 'elements of uncertainty'... learn to TRUST your INSTINCTS and OPINIONS about an RC or any other Verbal question. Its a known story for CAT 2k5 and 2k6 on how the coaching classes have tackled and fought over questions for two months after CAT - and well 2k6 had somethin additional - the IIMs coming out with an altogetha different key -- so I guess all da coaching classes will be revising their verbal basics again this year - or rather - goin thru the above post by Chango on PG

Trust your basics of reading and your practiced verbal abilities in the exam hall - and then shade the bubbles -- its very rare that you wud get it wrong if you have been getting it rite 8/10 times in mocks etc... after all - Verbal is a mind-game too - and for most its a good-day bad-day concept... Its almost sure that with an ambiguous kinda section, your friends will have a different answer from what you have - but that shudnt let u down. The verbal section normally passes several hands in the CAT committee, as I have been hearing - and the answer key too (if it doesnt, people will just HAVE to accept the viewpoint of a single person to any particular answer). The IIMs will always have da last say - and who knows - it mite co-incide with yours.

All da best.

Ashish

[vyomb]

Originally Posted by chango

In the world of GMAT, there is sumthng called spidey's notes ..... it is considered a panacea for all the verbal blues !! I am attaching it here ... plz download

make sure you spend a lot of time in not just mugging up the rules but understanding them minutely. Friends you have got to understand that the verbal portion of CAT has faced a lot of wrath which was uncalled for. I still stand by my words that it was NOT as flawed as it was potrayed to be by many. Except just a few RC questions and two or three F,I,J ; it was a paper completely based on the GMAT format (though not executed in the right way as in GMAT you are supposed to attempt every qs and every subsequent correct answer decides ur score and hence accuracy matters but in CAT accuracy went for a toss !! ... people with less than 50 % accuracy made it to the IIMs and thats the whole reason why LUCK word has been associated with it...coz people with less attempt and greater accuracy dint have much to take back home and ppl who blindly attempted played heavily on luck)..... Before retaliating to this view point of mine, its my earnest request that solve GMAT questions, understand the basic line of thought of the GMAT question setters and THEN solve the paragraph qs of CAT 2006 ... trust me you would know exactly what i am talking about ( by no means is it an all fart no shit feedback as it is coming from a guy who has scored 720 in his GMAT and 99.80 in CAT '06 VA with a 73.33 % accuracy .... no i hv no reasons to flaunt BUT its a fact that people listen more to performers .... so if my score helps you in paying more attention to the words spoken, well so be it. ) Also do keep a tab on your accuracy; CAT has always paid a lot of emphasis on it sans this year ... and as we all agree on one thing that it was a flawed paper (maybe for our own different reasons) we can very well expect them to come out with a much better paper this year. SO do NOT neglect accuracy. If CAT goes back to a 2 hour game (which i think they would and they had already mentioned it last yr. that 2.5 hours is not a permanent change) then accuracy will be of utmost importance !

Coming back to the verbal prep ...... also download this official software for GMAT practice .... along with Sentence Correction and RC you will also get a very good set of Critical Reasoning qs which hv a high prob. of occurrence this yr. Also GMAT Official Guide 10 and 11 are awesome to say the least !! .... Official Guide 10 is freely avail. online and that would suffice if you cannot arrange OG 11. People plz for God's sake DO NOT join any coaching insti for verbal ... it will never ever help you !! All it can do is give you some tips here n there but majority (and its a BIG majority) of the work has to be done by you alone.

Before i sign off.... plz remember that the whole verbal portion is NOT english by ne chance .... yes it is not !!! its simply, truly, plainly LOGIC ! LOGIC !! LOGIC !!! ........ so stop cribbing that your english is not good or that english was never your first language ... coz if you can develop your logic in quant and DI so can you in VA as well. All it needs is smart work and a simple logical line of thought. I would go as far as asking you not to learn a single word for your CAT prep.. instead read and read and read articles .... but then a good vocab nvr hurts. Well i never sat down with all those TIME word-cards or those vocab accelerators which were more of vocab brakes for me !!!

One thing very important for the verbal section is the identification of 'garbage' .... think of any option which has garbage in it and follow the GIGO rule ... garbage in garbage out !! ... just throw that option away (had asked tati around 6-7 months back to throw the garbage away emphatically and with full confidence after abusing it and then crossing that option out with the pencil; always helps your confidence level !! ).... what i mean is there will be options which will be completely 'out of the scope' of the context (be it RC, passage completions or nethng else) ... those are the garbages ! ..... follow simple rules and work on GMAT critical reasoning qs and you would know what i mean by the 'garbages' ..... feel free to PM or scrap me on orkut to identify the garbages . once you start facing the real qs and work on it diligently, knowing not only why you got a qs wrong but also 'how the hell did i get this one right'? , garbages will b a cake walk for u


Rock On

Ace your Verbal !!!

Great post Chango....
will try to learn the fundaaz...

[chango]

Originally Posted by vyomb

Great post Chango....
will try to learn the fundaaz...

hey dude .... wen quoting any post, try to quote jst a part of it .... do not quote the whole post as it eats up space

all the best !

[vyomb]

Originally Posted by chango

hey dude .... wen quoting any post, try to quote jst a part of it .... do not quote the whole post as it eats up space

all the best !

okies sir ....

[MBA_007]

HI TANVEER

U r really doing a fantastic job............m enjoying doing these here
here are my take for ur second vocab questions

1 d
2 d
3 c
4 c
5 d
6 a
7 c
8 b
9 a
10 c

[rahulsood]

Hi....
just suscribing

rahul