By moiramuldoon
Students often miss comparisons. What’s important to remember that when you make comparisons, you need to compare apples to apples and oranges and to oranges.
For example, if the sentence says that Mick Jagger’s voice is better than Aretha Franklin, you know it’s wrong because Mick Jagger’s VOICE is being compared to Aretha Franklin, not Aretha Franklin’s voice. You can’t reasonably compare a voice and a person – you can only compare a voice to a voice.
Here’s an example from the College Board’s website:
After the music recital, Alexandra enjoyed listening (A) to her friend Mohammed’s insightful interpretation, which she(B) thought was more sophisticated(C) than the other performers.(D)
No error (E)
The answer here is D. Alexandra enjoyed listening to an interpretation – which is, in this case, being compared to performers, not performers’ interpretations. An interpretation is being compared to performers – in other words, apples are being compared to oranges. Here is a corrected version of the sentence:
After the music recital, Alexandra enjoyed listening (A) to her friend Mohammed’s insightful interpretation, which she(B) thought was more sophisticated(C) than the other performers’ interpretations.(D )
Or this:
After the music recital, Alexandra enjoyed listening (A) to her friend Mohammed’s insightful interpretation, which she(B) thought was more sophisticated(C) than the other performers’. (D)
Note that in this second correction, the word interpretation is dropped. Often, the way this kind of question gets complicated is through the use of possessives and dropping a word. Possessives are indicated by the use of the apostrophe s (’s) or s apostrophe (s’). If you have a sentence than involves a comparison and a possessive, check it especially carefully. And always make sure that things are compared to things, people to people, and apples to apples.
By moiramuldoon
Learning what the dangling modifier is and how to fix it is a quick way to get more points on the writing section. There are usually several of these in the first two parts of the grammar/writing section, and students usually miss them.
Essentially, when a sentence starts off with a phrase that has an action or description in it, the subject of that phrase needs to come immediately after it. Here’s an example:
Having finished dinner, it was time for bed.
Yowzers — that’s not right. Look at the introductory phrase “having finished dinner.” Who or what has finished dinner? Well, we don’t know from the sentence, but we do know that the subject needs to be a person. Mary finished dinner, Bedilia finished dinner, someone finished dinner.
What we do know is that “It” did not finish dinner (how can an “it” eat dinner???), but “it” is the first word after the introductory phrase. That’s wrong. Plain old wrong. So we need to fix it.
Having finished dinner, Mary went to bed.
This works. We have introductory phrase with an action – finishing dinner. Who or what finished dinner? Mary. Is “Mary” the first word after the introductory phrase? Yup. OK, problem solved.
Let’s try another one.
Getting out of the shower, the doorbell rang.
We have an introductory phrase with an action or description: “Getting out of the shower.” We need a subject. Who or what was getting out of the shower? Well, the first word after the phrase is “the doorbell.” Was the doorbell getting out of the shower? No? Then the sentence is wrong. A fix might be:
Getting out of the shower, James heard the doorbell ring.
Who was getting out of the shower? James. Ah…the first word after that introductory phrase is the subject of it. Yay– that works.
FYI: Dangling modifiers can occur at the ends of sentences but nearly always happen at the beginning.
Want to learn more about this? (And who wouldn’t??) Check out the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). It’s a fantastic resource for all grammar quandaries:
The main site:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
The dangling modifier page:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_dangmod.html
By moiramuldoon
SAT Essay Prep: Thesis, part 1
Writing a good clear thesis is essential to a successful essay. You want a thesis that does several things:
1. Answers the prompt
2. Takes a side
3. Explains WHY you think what you think
Number three is the tough one. Let’s take a look at the first two first.
Here’s a prompt from the June 2008 SAT, which I’m quoting directly from the College Board website:
Prompt 1
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
Most of us are convinced that fame brings happiness. Fame, it seems, is among the things people most desire. We believe that to be famous, for whatever reason, is to prove oneself and confirm that one matters in the world. And yet those who are already famous often complain of the terrible burden of fame. In fact, making the achievement of fame one’s life goal involves commitments of time and effort that are usually wasted.
Adapted from Leszek Kolakowski, Freedom, Fame, Lying, and Betrayal: Essays on Everyday Life
Assignment:
Does fame bring happiness, or are people who are not famous more likely to be happy? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
OK, so after reading this, you brainstorm for two or three minutes and think of some famous people: Paris Hilton, Paul Newman, George Clooney, George Bush, Brad and Angelina. Are they happy? Well, it’s not like you know them and can say for sure, but it seems like they’re happy. WHY are they happy? Is it because of the fame? It seems like maybe that’s true for Paris Hilton, but not for Brad and Angelina or for Paul Newman. So, you decide to write that no, fame does not bring happiness.
OK. great. You have taken a side and answered the prompt, so your thesis might look like this:
‘As evidenced by the lives of celebrities, fame does not bring happiness.’
OK. That’s good. It’s clear, it’s direct, it answers the question asked.
What it still needs to do to be a knockout is explain WHY you think that fame does not bring happiness. Which brings us to item number 3.
So, WHY don’t you think that fame is responsible for making people happy? Well, though people pursue it, they also complain about it and try to escape it — Brad and Angelina went all the way to Africa to have a baby, so they could escape their fame. Paul Newman was happiest at his camp for disabled children — where no one knew who he was. If fame brought them happiness, why would they want to escape their fame??
So your revised thesis might look like this:
“If you look closely at the lives of celebrities, it’s clear that fame does not bring happiness because the celebrities often try to escape their fame, and few people run away from things that bring them happiness.”
Here’s the magic piece: “Because.”
If you can answer the prompt and then add the word “because” and then explain the reasons that led you to choose the side that you did, your thesis will be much stronger. I repeat: What’s important here is that you can articulate WHY you have chosen the side that you did — in this case, WHY you think that celebrities aren’t happy because of fame.
End of part 1.
Next post: More on Brainstorming…