GMAT Grammar Rules for GMAT Sentence Correction

GMAT grammar of sentence correction measures the fundamental of the correct use of idioms and phrases. Basic grammar concepts are required for GMAT Verbal Reasoning. Basic fundamentals of GMAT grammar can be prepared from online resources like books or videos. GMAT Verbal sentence correction questions target two aspects – the structure and meaning of the sentences.

Same kinds of grammatical concepts are asked in GMAT Sentence Correction questions. The more one practices sentence correction questions, the same rules are asked repeatedly.
By using English grammar rules for sentence correction, the answers should follow three GMAT sentence correction basics -

• Grammatically correct
• Concise
• Logical

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GMAT Grammar - Subject-verb Agreement

Each sentence consists of a verb and a subject. The subject is the doer of the sentence whereas the verb is the action of the subject. The agreement builds a connection between the subject and the verb for clear meaning. The various parts of a sentence should be in agreement with each other for clear thought.

A few rules of GMAT subject-verb agreement are as follows:

• A singular noun should have a singular verb form

Example - The teacher gives us chocolates on Children’s Day.
Explanation- Here in this sentence, the singular noun ‘teacher’ is followed by the singular verb form ‘gives’.

• A plural noun should have a plural form of the verb

Example - Employees plan a potluck for Christmas party.
Explanation- Here, the employees are in plural number, therefore, the plural form of verb (plan) is used.

• The verb form for third person singular noun always ends with ‘s’ form of verbs

Example- Rahul gives his pencil to his little sister.
Explanation- In this example, Rahul is a third person singular noun, therefore, singular form of verb (give) is used as ‘gives’.

GMAT Grammar - Verb Tense and Form

The verb tenses and forms in GMAT grammar are used to indicate the time when the action has happened. Misuse of verb tenses can change the meaning of the sentence. The three main tense forms in GMAT grammar are present, past and future.

In the following chart three forms of the verb are explained thoroughly for the GMAT grammar test:

Present Tense Verb Forms 

Past Tense Verb Forms 

Future Tense Verb Forms 

GMAT Grammar - Noun-Pronoun Agreement

The pronoun is a word used in place of a noun to keep the meaning intact. Nouns and pronouns must be in a similar number within a sentence. The purpose of a pronoun is to match the antecedents. The GMAT pronoun must follow the gender number and person of the noun clearly. For example, Rahul gave a pencil to her little sister. As ‘Rahul’ is a masculine gender, then ‘he’ is the correct form of the pronoun.

Example: Pratt came to the party and he directly went inside the food court.
Explanation: The repetitive use of the noun Pratt is avoided by using the pronoun ‘he’, but the meaning of the sentence remains intact.

GMAT Grammar - Parallelism 

Parallelism in GMAT sentence correction refers to similar words or phrases that are used in a single sentence to emphasize a similar idea. In GMAT sentence correction parallelism, the nouns and the verbs remain concrete whereas a little change in gerunds and conjunction can change the meaning of the sentence.

GMAT Grammar - Incorrect Comparison

In GMAT grammar questions. while comparing, one must make sure the comparison is between the same category of things, i.e., between things, people, or places.

Incorrect: I love shopping, but Pantaloons’ dresses are better than Biba.
Correct: I love shopping, but Pantaloons’ dresses are better than Biba’s.

The first sentence is incorrect because the comparison becomes between dresses from a shop (Pantaloons’) and a shop (Biba). Whereas in the second sentence, the added apostrophe makes the comparison between the dresses from two places.

Thus, one must compare and contrast things to things and people to people. One can use words like ‘other’ or ‘else’ while comparing one member to other members of the same group.

Incorrect: Mohit runs faster than Tuhin.
Correct: Mohit runs faster than Tuhin.

The first sentence is incorrect because it contains a double comparison. The word ‘more’ is not required as ‘faster’ is already the comparative form of the adjective fast and is enough to show the comparison between two people.

GMAT Grammar - Modifiers 

Modifiers in GMAT sentence correction are the phrases used to provide extra information about a sentence. The phrases used in modifiers describe the adjective and adverb of the sentence.

In GMAT sentence correction, the modifiers are mostly used to lead the candidates to choose incorrect options.

GMAT Modifier Errors 

There are two types of errors in GMAT SC modifiers- Dangling Modifiers, and Misplaced Modifiers.

• Dangling Modifiers - The Dangling modifier does not describe the entity explicitly in a sentence. A dangling modifier in a GMAT SC question is always in the introductory part of the sentence.

• Misplaced Modifiers - GMAT SC Misplaced modifiers are phrases used to communicate the clear meaning of the sentence with precision.

GMAT Grammar- Idioms

Idioms or idiomatic expressions are very common in GMAT sentence correction exercises, which normally involve prepositions. These are utterly confusing for the test-takers to understand and fixing the original error becomes more problematic. Daily practice of GMAT grammar from high-school level books helps to understand these accurately.

Example: One graduates “from” college, not “of” college. One “belongs to a club,” not “belongs with a club.”

Generally, GMAT sentence correction questions test more than one error in one sentence. Correct answer choices need to be grammatically and idiomatically sound.