Writing

Fixing Paragraphs = Critical Reading ‘Lite’ + Improving Sentences

As far as I can tell, no one pays much attention to the "Fixing the Paragraph" portion of the Writing section.  Given that I pretty regularly get 1 or 2 wrong, I asked Erica Meltzer to spend some time with me on this.

You can read her method in this blog post.

The take-aways from the session for me were:

1) Skim.  This is "Critical Reading Lite" meets "Improving Sentences."

2) On first read, mark anything that sounds funny.  Chances are there will be a question related to that area.

3) Eliminate answers in the same way you would in the Fixing the Sentences section  (i.e. Gerunds are bad; Shorter is better; Passive is bad).

Below is a Fix the Paragraph example from a Writing section.  I got everything right, except for #31.  If you'd like to see the other questions, they are on pages 535 and 536 in the College Board Blue Book.

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

 
2 Comments | posted June 26th, 2011
 
 
  • moosy (from Belgium)

    I would have picked D because when it said "from opposite sides of conflicts all over the globe", my first question was "Sure, but which countries are they talking of? What kind of conflicts?"

    • http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier

      Wait, but then your answer should be B is that's your question, right?  And B is correct.

 

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