6.4 Sentence Correction, Redundancy, and Idiomatic Usage

6.4 Sentence Correction, Redundancy, and Idiomatic Usage

Sections 6.1 to 6.3 taught you to name a fault. Sentence-improvement items ask for something harder: choosing between four versions of one idea when two or three of them are already grammatical. The winner is decided by meaning and economy, not by grammar alone.

How a sentence-improvement item is built

A single sentence appears with part of it underlined (on a computer-based screen, highlighted). Four options follow. Four structural facts govern the format:

1. The first option reproduces the underlined words exactly. It is a real answer. Choose it whenever the original is already the best version — never manufacture a fault just because the item exists.
2. Only the underlined stretch may change. Words outside it are frozen, and every option must still fit them. An option that repairs the underline but clashes with the frozen remainder is dead.
3. Options often trade one fault for another. A choice that removes a wordy phrase while quietly changing some to all has failed.
4. Length is a tiebreaker, not a test. The shortest option wins only when the survivors are equally correct and mean the same thing.

The three criteria, in priority order

The order is not decoration. A candidate who reaches for the shortest option first will sooner or later pick a crisp but ungrammatical phrase over a slightly longer correct one.

A six-step elimination routine

1. Read the entire sentence, frozen part included.
2. Predict the repair in your head before your eyes touch the options.
3. Read only the first two or three words of each option, stacked vertically. Where the options first diverge is the decision the item is testing — the split.
4. Settle the split and kill options in batches. Two or three usually die at once.
5. Find the next split among the survivors and repeat.
6. Substitute the survivor back into the full sentence and read it whole, aloud in your head.

Sentence:  Aldrin ...[ insisted to recheck the totals himself ]... before signing.
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ underlined stretch

  1   insisted to recheck ...      <- the original, repeated word for word
  2   insisted on rechecking ...   | split 1: "to" + verb  vs  "on" + -ing
  3   insisted on rechecking ...   |
  4   insisted for rechecking ...

"Insist" takes "on" plus an -ing form, so split 1 kills options 1 and 4
together, before the rest of their words are read. Options 2 and 3 are
still identical here; a later split -- "the totals himself" against
"the totals all by himself" -- separates them on economy alone.

Wordiness and redundancy

Redundancy is saying one thing twice; wordiness is using six words where two will do. Both are faults of economy rather than of grammar, which is why they survive a reader who is checking only for broken rules.

One pattern deserves its own line: "The reason ... is because" doubles the causal link. Write The reason the ferry was delayed is that the pier was flooded, or simply The ferry was delayed because the pier was flooded.

Passive voice — and when it is right

Passive voice puts the receiver of the action in the subject slot: The report was submitted by the treasurer. It is not an error. It becomes a fault only when the doer is known, important, and available to be the subject; then it adds two words and buries the actor.

Passive is the better choice when:

• the doer is unknown — The tarpaulin was torn down overnight.
• the doer is irrelevant or obvious — The application will be processed within five working days.
• the receiver is the real topic of the paragraph — The Pasig River was declared biologically dead in the 1990s.
• the writing is scientific or procedural, where the method matters and the person carrying it out does not — The mixture was heated for ten minutes and then filtered.

So never eliminate an option purely for being passive. Eliminate it for being passive without a reason.

Idiomatic prepositions

English idiom is arbitrary: the right preposition after a given verb or adjective is a fact to be memorised, not derived.

A second list matters just as much — verbs that take no preposition at all: discuss, emphasise, stress, mention, approach, resemble, lack, enter, answer, reach, and attend (an event). Attend to exists but means "to care for", so attend to the seminar is wrong while attend to the patient is right.

Hybrid forms, localisms, double negatives, and register

• Hybrids splice two correct structures into one wrong one: despite of (from despite + in spite of), comprised of (from comprises + composed of), the reason is because, more superior than, could of (a mishearing of could have), and irregardless (from irrespective + regardless).
• Localisms heard daily in the Philippines but marked wrong in standard written English: cope up with → cope with; result to → result in; based from → based on; discuss about → discuss; fill up the form → fill out the form; open the light → turn on the light.
• Double negatives. Hardly, scarcely, barely and rarely are already negative, so didn't hardly, can't scarcely and without hardly are doubled. So is couldn't find nothing.
• Register and diction. Entrance-test English is formal written English. Kids becomes children, a lot of becomes many, sort of becomes somewhat, anyways becomes anyway, and contractions such as doesn't are usually avoided in the polished version.

Two annotated rewrites

Rewrite 1 (40 words to 15).

Original: Due to the fact that the barangay officials were not in agreement with each other about the new curfew, a final decision regarding the matter was not able to be arrived at by the council at this point in time.

Rewrite: Because the barangay officials disagreed about the new curfew, the council could not yet decide.

Rewrite 2 (31 words to 19, five distinct faults).

Original: Despite of the fact that she was more superior than her classmates in mathematics, Liwayway didn't hardly ever participate to the review sessions that were conducted by the department every Saturday.

Rewrite: Although she was superior to her classmates in mathematics, Liwayway hardly ever participated in the department's Saturday review sessions.

What examiners are really testing

• The lure of brevity. A clipped option that has quietly dropped a necessary word is among the most effective distractors in this item type.
• The silent meaning change. Watch for most becoming all, suggests becoming proves, may becoming will.
• The half-repair. The option fixes the obvious redundancy and introduces a preposition error four words later. Read every option to its final word.
• The unearned rejection of the original. Some sentences are already right.
• Fixing outside the underline. If the fault you spotted is in the frozen text, you have misread the item.