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These questions are sort of a combination of sentence correction questions and reading questions from the SAT. A revision-in-context passage is a short essay full of flaws. It’s supposed to be like an early draft of an essay that you would revise in school. Whatever.

The first thing you should do is read through the passage quickly, just to get a sense of what it is about. As you read it you will notice mistakes, but don’t bother marking them down because any question that refers to a mistake will tell you where the mistake is.

Here’s an example:

1. The jellator is unlike most animals. 2. It is known mainly for what it cannot do. 3. It is known less for what it can do. 4. It cannot reproduce. 5. It cannot hunt for its food. 6. It cannot walk on hind feet. 7. The one thing it can do is stop its own heartbeat.

8. When placed under dire conditions, such as when under attack, the jellator curls itself into a little ball and makes its heart stop beating. 9. The attacker, sensing that its prey is no
longer alive, will lose its desire to hunt and ran away. 10. The jellator then goes back to its own business of doing nothing in particular. 11. Scientists have many ideas about this unique skill.

12. Some believe that the jellator, possessing no other defense methods, evolved this ability over thousands of years. 13. Others believe that a meteor crashed eons ago, imbuing a jellator with magical skills. 14. However, the most common belief about the jellator’s ability is that there is a little elf that lives inside the jellator’s chest and holds the heart still when a predator is nearby.

Here are examples of three types of questions that would follow a passage like this:

1. Which of the following is the best way to combine sentences 1, 2, and 3?

(A) The jellator is known mainly for what it cannot do, unlike most animals, and less for what it can do.

(B) Known less for what it can do and mainly for what it cannot do, the jellator is unlike most animals.

(C) Knowing what it can and cannot do, the jellator is unlike most animals.

(D) Unlike most animals, the jellator is known more for what it cannot do than for what it can do.

(E) The jellator is more like a dessert topping than an animal.

The correct answer is (D).

2. Which of the following is the best revision of the underlined portion of sentence 9 below?
The attacker, sensing that its prey is no longer alive,
will lose its desire to hunt and ran away.

(A) will have run away and desired to hunt.

(B) will lose its desire to hunt and run away.

(C) will have lost; its desire to hunt and ran away.

(D) will have lost it, and desired to have run away.

(E) will lose, desire, hunt and run away.

The answer to this question is (B).

Note:
This type of question, which asks you to fix one sentence, is just like the sentence correction questions, except that choice (A) is
not
the same as the underlined portion of the sentence.

3. In relation to the passage as a whole, which of the following best describes the writer’s intention in the third paragraph?

(A) To summarize the rest of the passage

(B) To illustrate an example

(C) To provide theories for explaining the information in the second paragraph

(D) To prove the existence of jellators

(E) To titillate the reader with lewd, lascivious tales of bawdy lechers

The answer is (C).

Notice that while on the surface these questions look like the reading passage questions in the SAT critical reading section, these questions never ask you about facts and ideas in the passage. Still, you will have to more or less understand the passage, because fixing the mistakes requires knowing what the passage is trying to say and picking up on its main idea. (Sound familiar?)

These are the rules most likely to be tested for on the SAT I writing section. We won’t give any in-depth explanations or use any fancy grammatical terms in this section. For each rule, we will simply make you aware of the concept and then give examples. Instead of being “textbookish” and going into the grammatical theory behind our rules, we will depend on your ability to “hear” when something “sounds” right or wrong.

Nevertheless, you will first have to understand the following basic grammatical terms that you probably already know. Sorry.

noun

Word that denotes a person, place, thing, idea (
joy
), quality (
stickiness
), or act (
drooling
).

pronoun

As Homer Simpson defined it when he was studying for his high school diploma, “A noun that has lost its amateur status.” Actually, a word that takes the place of a noun. (Example: The Serpent is evil.
He
is cruel.
He
is a pronoun because it takes the place of
Serpent
.)
It, he, she, they, we, who
, and
them
are some examples of pronouns.

verb

Word that expresses action (
jump
) or a state of being (
be
). A verb tells what’s happening in the sentence.

subject

Noun or pronoun that “does” the action of the verb in the sentence. (Example:
He
drooled.
He
is the subject because
he
is the thing that drooled.)

object

Noun or pronoun that the verb acts on. (Example: He tickled
me
.
Me
is the object because
me
is the thing that got tickled.)

preposition

Words like
to, at, in, up, over, under, after, of
. They go with objects. (For example, in the phrase “in the house,”
in
is a preposition and
house
is the object.)

singular

Having to do with a single thing or single unit. (Example:
noodle.
)

plural

Having to do with more than one thing. (Example:
noodles.
)

Rule 1: Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject and verb must agree in number, so isolate the subject and the verb and make sure they match. If the subject is singular, the verb should be singular; if the subject is plural, the verb should be plural.

Example 1:

The proctor, as well as the students, were overcome by the tedious ticking of the timer and fell asleep.

Combine:
“The proctor were overcome.”

This should sound wrong to you.
Proctor
is singular, so the verb should be singular—
was overcome
. Don’t be tempted by the plural word
students;
it is set off by a pair of commas, so it’s not part of the subject.

Correct:
The proctor, as well as the students, was overcome by the tedious ticking of the timer and fell asleep.

Three expressions that are similar to the
as well as
in the above example are:
in addition to
,
along with
, and
together with
. When you see one of these expressions on the test, chances are the Serpent is trying to make you think that the subject is plural.

Example 2:

The anguish of the students have been a source of pleasure to the ETS.

Combine:
“The anguish have been a source of pleasure.” This should sound wrong to you. Don’t get confused by the plural word
students,
because it isn’t the subject.
Students,
in this sentence, is an object. You can tell because it comes after a preposition,
of.
Whenever a word comes after a preposition, it is an object, not a subject.

Correct:
The anguish of the students has been a source of pleasure to the ETS.

Example 3:

Each of the streets were painted green.

Combine:
“Each were painted green.”

This one is a little trickier. You have to realize that the subject of the sentence is
Each
and not
of the streets
. (
Streets
is an object of the preposition
of
.) Anytime you see “of the _____,” the word that goes in the blank is an object, not a subject. Although
streets
is plural, the subject of the sentence,
Each
, is singular. If you replace the “of the _____” part of the sentence with the word
one,
it is easier to see why the subject is singular: “Each one was painted green” sounds much better than “Each one were painted green.”

Correct:
Each of the streets was painted green.

There are 13 singular subjects like
each
that you should memorize:
each
,
every
,
either
,
neither
,
one
,
no one
,
everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody,
and
nobody.
Whenever you see one of these words as the subject of a sentence
on the test, pay careful attention to whether the verb is singular. For example:

Incorrect:
Neither of the streets
were
painted green.

Correct:
Neither of the streets
was
painted green.

Again, it helps to replace the “of the _____” part of the sentence with the word
one:
“Neither one was painted green” should sound better to you than “Neither one were painted green.”

Incorrect:
Either this street or that street
were
painted green.

Correct:
Either this street or that street
was
painted green.

Incorrect:
One of the streets
were
painted green.

Correct:
One of the streets
was
painted green.

Rule 2: Noun-Pronoun Agreement

Singular subjects take singular pronouns; plural subjects take plural pronouns. You know the list of singular subjects that you just memorized (
each
,
every
,
either
,
neither
,
one
,
no one
,
everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody,
and
nobody
)? Well, each of these words takes a singular pronoun. Whenever one of the words on the list is the subject, the pronoun that refers to that word has to be singular. This is a hard rule to “hear” because so many people break this rule that we’re used to hearing it the wrong way.

Example 1:

Not one of the boys read their SAT study guide.

This sentence doesn’t sound awful to most people, but it’s wrong. The subject
one
is singular, but the pronoun
their
is plural. (
Boys
is plural, but it’s an object. You can tell it’s an object because of the “of the _____” construction.) The correct pronoun would be
his.

Correct:
Not one of the boys read his SAT study guide.

Example 2:

Each of the girls ate their lunch.

Each
is singular, but
their
is plural. Try replacing the
of the girls
part of the sentence with
one
and you should see why the pronoun
her
sounds better than
their.

Correct:
Each of the girls ate her lunch. (Again, think “each one.”)

There are also some pronouns that can go either way. These are s
ome, any, none, all,
and
most
—the SANAM pronouns (it’s easier to remember when you realize that it sounds like Saddam). They can be either singular or plural, depending on the subject.

Example 3:

Paris Hilton didn’t know that some of the webcams was on.

Ms. Hilton might think this sentence sounds just fine, but
you
know that
webcams
is plural, and therefore
some
should be plural, too.