GMAT?

[Andersson]

I just got my confidence completely shattered by a series of GMAT example questions.

I’m considering applying to a university that requires a GMAT score as part of the application. Finding a website with some practice questions I decided to see what I would be up against if I were to take the test. Well, out of ten questions, and these were only basic level questions, I only managed two correct answers. I thought my English was rather good, but this has my really questioning how much I actually know about the finer points of English grammar.

Has anyone taken the actual test, and if so, how did you do? Are these questions (see link below) easy for a native speaker, or are they in fact just as super tricky and sneaky as they are for me?

GMAT Sentence Correction : Practice Tests and Information

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I tried the first "easy" test, and got 7 out of 10. These are tough!

I can only suggest lots of practice with samples like this.

Maybe you can also have other people look at your writing to make sure it fits the formal style. For example, in formal writing you would say "I just had my confidence" and so on.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I got 2 out of 10 and I'm usually able to string a sentence together. Practice, I fear, is the answer....

 

[Nick B]

5 out of 10, with the explanations they make perfect sense, of course. But this is why I am not an editor and need one!

 

[The Judge]

I managed 8 out of 10.

The two I failed on were numbers 4 and 9, and in both cases I chose a grammatically correct option but fell down on their idea of "most effectively expressed" -- so it isn't enough to know grammar, you have to think also about clarity, brevity, and *hint hint* active voice.

 

[Ursa major]

I haven't tried it yet, but will later.

(Post edited, because I hadn't read the instructions. Oops! )

 

[Kylara]

I got 9 out of 10

Same here TJ! I disagreed with their phrasing of 9, I much preferred my option, grammatically correct, but obviously not the one they wanted. I thoroughly enjoyed that, nice distraction from the last 1000 words in this shakespeare essay on moral ambiguity!

 

[Cat's Cradle]

In a quick pass at the first easy one, I had 8 of 10...I missed 9 too, TJ & Kylara, and for the same reason. (I don't think I'll attempt any of the harder ones. )

 

[TitaniumTi]

I'm not sure that those questions are representative of actual GMAT questions. (I itched to re-write their sentences, from start to finish.) The footer of the web pages says that the Graduate Management Admission Council does not endorse the product.

The website is selling a GMAT study book, and lower scores could result in higher sales.

I found a small set of retired GMAT questions, elsewhere on the web. It contained two sentence correction questions, which were much less convoluted than those in the linked site.

 

[J Riff]

In four minutes, 6 out of ten. It's time to go back and do a bunch of these. Every time it takes a while to sync back in. Good thing I never write sentences like those examples. He posted his post, and wondered whether the grammaticality was correct.

 

[pambaddeley]

Love a duck! Only four out of ten :-0
But I did misunderstand what they were getting at in at least a couple ....

 

[LittleStar]

I managed 4 out of 10, they are very tough, and to make things more difficult some of the wrong ones aren't grammatically incorrect answers, and some answers I would have written, rather than chosen from a list, just weren't there... I don't like things like this, it's very pedantic

 

[Droflet]

7. Hmm, this sounds a bit dodgy to me.

 

[Andersson]

I got 2 out of 10 and I'm usually able to string a sentence together. Practice, I fear, is the answer....

Nice to know I'm not completely alone in my struggles; though the general level of grammar seems, not unexpectedly, to be quite high here on Chronos.

Practice does appear to work. Knowing some of their dirty tricks I managed a somewhat more respectable 6/10 on the second test (average score is 4,64). Two of my mistakes were simple ones that I'm upset with myself for making, I should know better, and I don't feel any need to bring them up here. However, my other two incorrect answers have me scratching my head.

Question 5

My answer:
You taking a loan to buy a car irritated Father.

Correct answer:
Your taking a loan to buy a car annoyed Father.

Explanation:
Do not use aggravated or irritated when you mean annoyed (really, what's the difference?). Also we need a possessive form of a pronoun in front of a gerund (what the is a gerund?), so you taking is wrong.

Question 10

My answer:
Denim jeans were originally worn not so much as a fashion statement but for being practical work clothes

Correct answer:

Denim jeans were originally worn not so much as a fashion statement as for their being practical work clothes.

Explanation:
The construction not so much as... as is correct.

I get the "as is" part but shouldn't it be "them being"?

 

[Andersson]

The website is selling a GMAT study book, and lower scores could result in higher sales.

Given my own score I wholeheartedly endorse this theory.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Hi Andersson,

I wouldn't worry too much. On the linked GMAT social group site, a GMAT instructor says of two of the questions in the test you linked (including Question 5), 'neither cover issues typically covered in the GMAT nor conform to the typical GMAT structure.'

possessive pronoun usage

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I use language a little oddly, anyway. I think it's because of my Northern Irish idiom - @HareBrain called me out for something recently that sounded perfectly right to me but odd to him because it felt like I was leaving words out.

I have decided to refer to such details as my voice

 

[The Judge]

Do not use aggravated or irritated when you mean annoyed (really, what's the difference?). Also we need a possessive form of a pronoun in front of a gerund (what the is a gerund?), so you taking is wrong.

I can only think they feel "irritate" should be restricted to cases of eg physical irritation (ie the type you have to scratch) or the original meaning of provoke or incite. However, it's been used, if only colloquially, as meaning annoy since at least 1600, so certainly using it in informal situations and in dialogue in a novel is perfectly acceptable, though personally I'd probably avoid using it as such in narrative and I wouldn't have an educated character use it in that sense.

Gerunds are nouns formed from verbs which have -ing endings, so here it's the "taking". I'd say that 99% of people for whom English is a native language have never heard of them and would use the "You taking" instead of the "Your" which is correct. I try and use the possessive forms (ie my, his etc) in my writing, in both narrative and the speech of those who should know better, but I imagine I'm in a minority of one in that respect as it can sound stilted and old fashioned.

I get the "as is" part but shouldn't it be "them being"?

Frankly, I think their version is ugly beyond belief, despite being correct, so I'd have completely re-written the sentence! Anyway, it's "their" not "them" as the "being" is again a gerund, so it has to take the possessive.

 

[chrispenycate]

Nice to know I'm not completely alone in my struggles; though the general level of grammar seems, not unexpectedly, to be quite high here on Chronos.

Practice does appear to work. Knowing some of their dirty tricks I managed a somewhat more respectable 6/10 on the second test (average score is 4,64). Two of my mistakes were simple ones that I'm upset with myself for making, I should know better, and I don't feel any need to bring them up here. However, my other two incorrect answers have me scratching my head.

Question 5

My answer:
You taking a loan to buy a car irritated Father.

Correct answer:
Your taking a loan to buy a car annoyed Father.

Explanation:
Do not use aggravated or irritated when you mean annoyed (really, what's the difference?). Also we need a possessive form of a pronoun in front of a gerund (what the is a gerund?), so you taking is wrong.

Question 10

My answer:
Denim jeans were originally worn not so much as a fashion statement but for being practical work clothes

Correct answer:

Denim jeans were originally worn not so much as a fashion statement as for their being practical work clothes.

Explanation:
The construction not so much as... as is correct.

I get the "as is" part but shouldn't it be "them being"?

A gerund is a present participle doing the job of a noun - as in 'swimming is generally good for you' (compare with 'swimming costume' {adjective} or 'I was swimming merrily along' {past continuous}). Their assumption that the 'being' in the second example is a gerund in the second example is very questionable - if so, what is the verb in the clause? I actually anticipate losing the 'my being a pedant' formation, along with the subjunctive mood 'if I were permitted thinking space - it already feels stilted and rigid in conversation, and the more casual form is driving my early training into evolutionary extinction, along with the 'like's killing off 'as if's - language mutates if no maintained by an immutable authority such as the Académie Français.

 

[pambaddeley]

Hi Andersson,

I wouldn't worry too much. On the linked GMAT social group site, a GMAT instructor says of two of the questions in the test you linked (including Question 5), 'neither cover issues typically covered in the GMAT nor conform to the typical GMAT structure.'

possessive pronoun usage

Yes, and she also said "Quick note: This site uses the same material for BOTH its SAT and GMAT practice tests:

SAT sentence correction practice test 02

I would definitely be suspect of material NOT unique to each test."

So the GMAT instructor is saying that the majortests site is worthless!