Strategy

Answer Choices in the Writing Section

• Oftentimes, there will be no questions, just answer choices

• What the question is asking needs to be inferred based on the given choices

• You are basically acting as an editor

Strategy

• When choosing the correct answer, you need to take into account how people write rather than how they speak

• Look for the wrong answers first before trying to find the correct one

• The aim is to pick the best answer choice possible

No Change

• The shortest answer is usually the best answer to pick

• There is always a chance that the “no change” option is the correct answer

Steps to Picking the Right Answer

1. Look for the changes in the answer choices

2. Determine what the question is asking for and pinpoint the differences between answer choices

3. Use process of elimination

4. If 3 answer choices cannot be eliminated, pick the shortest answer out of the options that are left (the shortest answer that doesn’t cause any errors is your best bet)

Usage of Words

Characteristics of the Correct Answer

• Consistency- the answer choice is consistent with the remainder of the passage

• Precision- the meaning of the sentence is clear and precise

• Concision- the answer is as short as possible without causing any errors

Transitions

• Some transitions take the main idea in a correlating direction, while others go in the opposite direction (which one is used will depend on the meaning of the sentence)

• The transition word needs to be consistent between the two answer choices it’s connecting

Verbs

• Verbs need to correlate with the subject (singular or plural) and they need to be in the proper tense

• In process of elimination, look at the subject first, then the tense, to determine what the correct answer is

Pronouns

• The pronoun needs to refer to the corresponding subject properly (singular or plural)

• The pronoun must only refer to one subject in the sentence (if the pronoun is confusing when standing alone, the subject needs to be specified)

%%Vocabulary %%

• The answer will be in good correlation with the context of the passage

• The answer needs to be consistent with the ideas of the sentence and precise in meaning in terms of context

^^Concision ^^

• Concision helps to communicate meaning properly

• The shortest answer (without errors) is usually the best, as it offers a clear understanding of the idea without confusing the reader

Modifiers

• Modifiers are describing phrases

• This phrase needs to be as close to the thing it is describing as possible

@@Parallelism and Comparisons @@

• The phrases or words of the correct answer need to be in correlation with previous statements in the sentence