{"id":3918,"date":"2015-03-20t12:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-20t12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=3379"},"modified":"2015-07-30t20:43:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30t20:43:07","slug":"sat-error-identification-know-your-advantages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-error-identification-know-your-advantages\/","title":{"rendered":"sat error identification: know your advantages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/monocle.png\" alt=\"monocle\" width=\"122\" height=\"167\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3380\" \/><br \/>\n<em>develop an \u201ceye for grammar.\u201d wear your monocle and get to it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>i know someone* who picks out grammatical mistakes wherever they show up: flyers, menus, signs, newspaper articles, instruction manuals, etc. she\u2019s often tempted to circle them. on occasion, she has given into this temptation. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/10_items_or_less.png\" alt=\"10_items_or_less\" width=\"188\" height=\"140\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3381\" \/><br \/>\n<em>noooo! do you see it?!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>whether or not you share this error-hunting attitude, you should adopt it for the writing section. in school, someone reads a draft of your essay and (among other things) will circle\/underline any grammar mistakes for you to correct later. on error identification questions, you are now the grader and must pinpoint the mistakes that need fixing.  <\/p>\n<p>in the 1st section of writing multiple choice, questions 12\u201429 are error id (chris often calls these &#8220;identifying sentence errors&#8221; questions &#8211; different name for the same thing). for most test-takers, these are the <strong>quickest and easiest<\/strong> ones. the bulk of your time will (and should) go into the other multiple-choice questions (sentence\/paragraph improvement). this chunk of error ids (18 questions total) is an opportunity to speed up your progress and boost your score with less effort. yay! <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/yay_turtle.png\" alt=\"yay_turtle\" width=\"249\" height=\"188\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3382\" \/><br \/>\n<em>i can\u2019t decide if this is cute or terrifying.<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>what\u2019s required<\/h2>\n<p>spot-the-error. that\u2019s it. read the sentence with a sharp focus and find the weakness, or decide that the sentence is already perfect as is (about one-fifth of questions have <a>no error<\/a>). repeat 18 times.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>advantages of error id questions<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>easier than sentence improvement\u2014instead of reading 5 sentences, you\u2019re only reading one.<\/li>\n<li>you don\u2019t have to correct the errors. you only have to find them.<\/li>\n<li>punctuation is rarely tested here. if anything, it usually involves commas.<\/li>\n<li>spelling and capitalization are not tested at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>potential disadvantages (or: reasons to study)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>some of the errors are very subtle, and therefore commonly missed.<\/li>\n<li>\u201c(e) no error\u201d\u2014 this often messes with students\u2019 minds. your confidence is always being tested, but even more so here. so don\u2019t panic\u2014practice to develop a sense of when \u201cno error\u201d is appropriate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/panic_button.png\" alt=\"panic_button\" width=\"169\" height=\"127\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3383\" \/><br \/>\n<em>do not push.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>with the exception of (e) no error, the <em>right<\/em> answer will be grammatically <em>wrong<\/em>. this is a deviation from the other question types, and can be tricky at first.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>one suggestion: do them first<\/h2>\n<p>some test-takers go straight to questions 12\u201429 and finish as many as they can. then they do questions 1\u201411 (sentence improvement) and 30\u201435 (paragraph improvement). i\u2019ve seen a number of students do this. for them, error id was sort of a \u201cgrammar warm-up\u201d before tackling the tougher questions. this strategy gave them the satisfaction of knowing they quickly knocked out 18 questions first. it also helped them manage their time more effectively. <\/p>\n<p>you can try this method and see if it helps. it\u2019s not a one-size-fits-all, but does work for some. remember: different strategies work for different test-takers. to study effectively, you have to know <strong>what kind of test-taker you are<\/strong>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>how to answer<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>read the entire sentence (you\u2019d be surprised\u2014some test-takers don\u2019t).<\/li>\n<li>look at each answer choice separately and carefully. imagine that you have a grammatical magnifying glass.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/magnifying_glass.png\" alt=\"magnifying_glass\" width=\"130\" height=\"103\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3384\" \/><br \/>\n<em>it sounds silly, but it does help.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>re-read the sentence. it forces you to look more closely at the sentence and maybe catch something you missed. even if the sentence looks fine, re-read it; do not immediately jump to e) no error.<\/li>\n<li>use standard process-of-elimination to boost your odds by 30%. with 5 answer choices, you start all questions with a 20% chance of answering correctly. ideally, you can eliminate 3 answer choices and be left with 2, thereby giving you a 50% chance. at this point, it\u2019s a coin toss, and not a bad place to be on a timed test.<\/li>\n<li>if you\u2019ve gone over the sentence twice and really can\u2019t find an error, don\u2019t doubt yourself. choose e and move on.<\/li>\n<li><strong>don\u2019t dwell on these.<\/strong> if you spend too much time on error id questions, you lose time on the others (which take longer)!<\/li>\n<li>prove it to yourself: when answering, quickly ask yourself: \u201cif this is the error, what should replace it?\u201d if you can give a clear answer, you can move on with confidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2015\/03\/editing_red_pencil.png\" alt=\"editing_red_pencil\" width=\"252\" height=\"135\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3385\" \/><br \/>\n<em>substitute with\u2026?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>that last one is especially important, especially for studying. determining <strong>&#8220;what it should be&#8221;<\/strong> will further develop your sense of right vs. wrong grammar. when practicing error id, write in the correction or make a mental note of it. although this isn\u2019t required on the actual test, it\u2019s very helpful during prep.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>want to practice?<\/h2>\n<p>of course you do. try this <a href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-error-identification-know-your-advantages\/\">set of 18 error id questions<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*<em>this person may or may not be me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>images from: pixabay, wikimedia, flickr, daily genius, and daily edge.<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>develop an \u201ceye for grammar.\u201d wear your monocle and get to it. i know someone* who picks out grammatical mistakes wherever they show up: flyers, menus, signs, newspaper articles, instruction manuals, etc. she\u2019s often tempted to circle them. on occasion, she has given into this temptation. noooo! do you see it?! whether or not you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[37,84],"ppma_author":[24905],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- this site is optimized with the yoast seo premium plugin v21.7 (yoast seo v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>sat error identification: know your advantages - magoosh blog | high school<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-error-identification-know-your-advantages\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"sat error identification: know your advantages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"develop an \u201ceye for 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