<p>I'm doing the sentence completion problems in the bb right now and I suddenly thought to myself; "is this method really effective?"</p>
<p>How I approach them</p>
<p>1- I read the sentence </p>
<p>2- I go down to the answer choices and try to look for the one that matches the 2nd blank</p>
<p>3- I find the one that matches and I choose that one.</p>
<p>Is this how most people do it?</p>
<p>I've never taken the sat before so I'm new to this kind of thing.
Sorry about the dumb questions.</p>
<p>I read the sentence and detect whether it could possibly have an error. Then, I look at the answer options and eliminate whatever is definitely wrong. From there, I use whatever knowledge of grammar I have to answer the question.</p>
<p>1) Read the sentence
2) Try to think of a word(s) that makes sense in the blank
3) <em>sometimes</em> check if there is a positive/negative tone in the sentence (helps narrow down the choices)
4) Scan through the choices and see which one fits w/ the sentence best</p>
<ol>
<li>Read the sentence</li>
<li>Think of your own word (doesn’t matter if it’s elementary)</li>
<li>Eliminate the ones that don’t match with your word</li>
<li>Look for context clues (which determine whether the sentence has a +/- tone)</li>
<li>Look for modifiers (which determine whether the two blanks flow towards the right/opposite direction)</li>
<li>More eliminations and find the answer (By this stage, you should have the answer unless some of the vocabs are really difficult)</li>
<li>Insert your answer choice into the blank(s) to see if the sentence sounds right as a whole.</li>
</ol>
<p>Btw, this really doesn’t take long. 15-25 seconds for each question after a good number of practice.</p>
<p>@Academicterror:</p>
<p>Perhaps you are doing the right thing. Just describe your method more specifically if it is.</p>
<p>@Islander4:</p>
<p>
[Quote=Islander4]
I read the sentence and detect whether it could possibly have an error. Then, I look at the answer options and eliminate whatever is definitely wrong. From there, I use whatever knowledge of grammar I have to answer the question.
[/Quote]
</p>
<p>Are you talking about improving sentences questions?</p>
<p>Well what I do is I read the sentence 1st. Then I go down to the answers and look at the “2nd” word choices. Then I just try to see which one sounds correct so that’s the answer I choose.</p>
<p>It’s sort of like plug and chug I think (which is a bad method)</p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed method Mega- I’ll use that way from now on.</p>
<p>What do you mean by modifiers? Could you give me an ex.?</p>
<ol>
<li>Read question</li>
<li>Read answers</li>
<li>???</li>
<li>Profit</li>
</ol>
<p>Seriously? It’s all about vocab. The only strategy is understanding the answer choices themselves. Not much is in the question IMO, it’s all in knowing different contexts and definitions and adaptations of the answer choices, finding which one fits best.</p>
<p>Well, going directly to the answers may be a disturbance because some those answers really do “sound” right.</p>
<p>Haha, sorry. I meant trigger words.
Some examples of trigger words are because, and, however, but, despite and since.</p>
<p>Because Academicterror got a _____ score on the SAT, he feels _____ about the test.</p>
<p>You can’t really find out what the blanks may contain. But there is a “Because” in the beginning of the sentence. The trigger “because” shows that the two blanks are towards the same direction. So either, BOTH blanks are positive or BOTH blanks are negative.</p>
<p>Triggers like “although” change the direction of the sentence, so one blank will be positive and the other will be negative.</p>
<p>Triggers also include punctuations like semicolons and colons.
If these triggers exist in a sentence, the sentence will be seperated into two parts, where one part contains a blank where as the other doesn’t. In this case, the clause without the blank is a clue for the clause with the blank.</p>
<p>Hope this helps :)</p>
<p>I read the sentence. I read the answer choices. If I know the words, great. If I don’t, then I make an educated guess.</p>
<p>Strategies only go so far, but knowing the vocabulary will get you every question.</p>
<p>I missed two sentence completions and managed a 760.</p>