Introducing: Grammar Man!

There's a whole heckuva lot you need to know about grammar, but you're probably so scared it'll bore you silly you just never go there.

Introducing: Grammar Man!

Grammar Man! Flying high over the mountains of speech parts, phrases, and clauses! To infinitives and beyond!

Grammar Man! Disguised as mild-mannered reporter, JHepCat, Grammar Man seeks the betterment of YOUR writing through a burgeoning and ever-increasing ability to analyze diction and syntax. Not to mention the elevation of the poetic over the prosaic. Or the use of active voice throughout, as opposed to the passive constructions so often associated with "legalese."

No, not to mention either of those.

Grammar Man begins his lesson today with the review of the eight parts of speech, aka The Eight Parts of Speech! only seven of which you need to know.

You can forget interjections. Hey! Wow! and Yikes! will never show up on a list of SAT vocabulary words.

Or any other list, other than a list of common interjections.

Sorry, Charlie.

But you do need to know The Big Four and The Little Three.

By The Big Four I mean, of course, noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. These are words you will find on a vocabulary list.

Nouns are things or ideas. People or places. Subjects are always always nouns; so are objects.

Verbs are the heart of any sentence or clause. Find the verb first and unlock the meaning of any sentence or clause. Verbs come in several varieties but the two most important are action and being. To swim, to drink, to read. These are all action verbs. Someone is doing something. To be (or not to be), is our "existence" verb. Any form of "to be" (not "not to be" -- not is never a verb, and never is not a verb. But I get ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh, yeah) Any form of to be, and there are eight: am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been is a being verb. You can't try as much as you like but you can't is. You can be, and you can are, but really, all you're doing is breathing. Bring a mirror for proof. There are helping verbs--pretty important. There are 15 of them, and you need to know them like you know the eight to bes and the 7 parts of speech worth knowing. We'll go over them soon, not today. There are transitive and intransitive verbs. And there are linking verbs, which can be pretty important. To bes and helpings are all also linkings. 'Xcuse me, not all helpings are linkings, but all beings are.

If you know what I mean. If you don't, hang in there. GrammarMan believes in keeping it silly, which a long time ago meant "wise."

Adjectives only modify, or describe nouns. They answer one of three questions: What kind? Which one? How many? Numbers are always adjectives because they tell how many. And remember--if it's not describing a noun, it's not an adjective.

Adverbs on the other hand, can modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. This is the main way you can distinguish between an adjective and an adverb: What kind of word is being modified/described?

By extension, the kind of word being modified can also be identified by answering the questions raised by adjectives and adverbs. As just mentioned, adjectives answer one of three questions: What kind? Which one? How many?

Adverbs answer one of four questions: When? Where? To what degree?/Under what conditions?/How? Or Why?

I know what you're thinking: "But GrammarMan, that's six questions!" You can see it that way, but really, throw the slashed questions into the How? bin and you'll probably be ok. I jsut think it's good to know those other phrasings, like knowing three different ways to make a chord when playing guitar.

Like that. At any rate, if your word answers When? Where? To what degree?/Under what conditions?/How? Or Why? it's an adverb. Take it to the bank.

The Little Three are so named not because they are of little importance, but because they are, in fact, little. They're not important vocabularially, either.

But they're crazy way important when you're reading. In fact, if you're trying to read faster, the small words are key. The bigger words your eye will naturally pick up, because they're bigger--the eye can't miss them. But little words telling whose, or where, or which, or whether or not, or although, or because--them's important!

GrammarMan knows the rules, and so breaks them with impunity. You can too. When you know them. Grammar is fun!

And the Little Three are prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions.

Prepositions are the smallest words. In, on, at, by, for, with, to, these are all prepositions. Prepositions never exist by themselves; they only exist in prepositional phrases. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun, known as the object of the preposition. Prepositional phrases always act as adjectives or adverbs. They're phrases, and they always begin with a preposition, but what they mean is: Something's being described--a thing, an action, another describer. But I get ahead of myself. We'll come back to this. Make sure you do, too.

Pronouns save us a lot of time and hassle. For example I could say: "GrammarMan's SAT blog is making GrammarMan's life life better by generating more income for GrammarMan, and establishing GrammarMan as a grammar, reading and writing expert."

But it's a lot simpler to say, GrammarMan is making his life better by generating more income for himself and establishing himself as a grammar expert. Not to mention making a lot of other people grammar experts, too, which is the value of GrammarMan's SAT blog."

Conjunctions come in three varieties: coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and corelative conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions are the most important. You can remember them by the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. You may prefer to remember them in pairs; that is, two pairs and one triad: and but, or nor for, so yet. Coordinating conjunctions like to think they're pretty important, but because they subordinate--make less-- the meaning of what follows, they just don't get that status. You can recognize the subordinate conjunction because if you take it away you have an independent clause -- -- a complete sentence. Subordinating conjunctions include words like while, because, although, and the rest.

Boy that was a lot, huh? But you can't make sense of grammar and you can't be a really great reader without knowing what the parts of speech are and what they do.

So copy and paste this into your grammar handbook: GrammarMan's Guide to Really Good Grammar and Much Better Readin' and Learnin' and thank me later.

To Guess or Not to Guess?

Many of you are wondering if guessing or not guessing is the better strategy on the upcoming SAT.

Let's think about this.

In fact, let's subject this to some good, old-fashioned analysis.

First of all, this is discussed at some length in Barron's How to Prepare for the SAT, 2007-2008 on pages 13-18.

Specifically, at the top of page 14 of Barron's How to Prepare for the SAT, these words appear in all caps:

THE BEST WAY TO INCREASE YOUR SCORE ON
THE SAT IS TO ANSWER FEWER QUESTIONS

Then again at the bottom of page 15:

THE BEST WAY TO INCREASE YOUR SCORE ON
THE SAT IS TO ANSWER FEWER QUESTIONS

Of course, on page 18, Barron's includes a chart of likely outcomes for guessing on 20 random questions, given your ability to eliminate 0, 1, 2, 3 or all 4 of the alternatives.

The verdict on page 18? If you can eliminate even one of the five choices, over the course of 20 questions, you should come out +1 on your raw score. If you can consistently eliminate all but two of the choices, over 20 questions, you should add 7.5 points to your raw score, which will add roughly 50 points to your Critical Reading of Writing scaled score, and 70 points to your scaled Math score.

Ultimately, if you have time and can eliminate at least one of the choices, the odds favor an increase in your score.

The two reasons NOT TO GUESS are these:

1) Making more time to work on the questions you feel are easiest; and

2) Not feeling rushed when taking the test. Knowing what your goal is, taking the time you need to get there. Answering questions judiciously.

And speaking of goals . . .

WHAT SCORE ARE YOU SHOOTING FOR?

If you'd like to get, say 730, you'll need to answer 63 out of 67 questions right, missing 4, for a raw score of 62.

But if you miss 6, you're down to 61 right, 2 wrong, for a 59 raw score, which is right at 700 scaled score.

When you're this close to 750, it usually pays to go for it, and answer all 67, especially if you feel comfortable with the time you have, and can eliminate at least 2 of the choices in questions you're not real sure of.

Still, as you just saw 63 -4/4 is 62 while 61 – 6/4 = 59. You may want to consider skipping one or two sticky questions if doing so provides you more certainty on the other 65 or 66.

Above all, if you are going to guess, don't agonize over it! Winnow out the bad choices, then simply choose one of the two or three left, and move on!

What if your goal is 650?

You'll need a raw score of 53 to get there.

This could mean skipping 14 questions and getting all 53 you do answer right.

But that's probably expecting too much.

Consider skipping 7 or 8, answering 59 or 60 and giving yourself room to miss 5 more.

You see, if you answer 60, but get 55 right, you'll deduct 5/4 for those mistakes, but your raw score will be 54, resulting in a final Critical Reading score of 660!

That'll work!

When I took the SAT on April 6, 1974—the first day I ever heard Bruce Springsteen, by the way. It was “Incident on 57th Street/Rosalita” and I thought I was listening to Van Morrison—I scored 660, putting me in the 98th percentile of all test takers nationally.

It can happen to you!

Point is, if 650 is your goal, ignoring some questions in favor of spending more time on others to make sure you get 'em right, is probably a smart strategy. If 650 is a legitimate goal for you, it probably means your vocabulary is strong enough to get 600s, but you haven't gotten over 650 yet. This strategy of answering questions judiciously may well work for you.

After all, the point is to bring scores up, not simply to race through and answer everything.

When you're capable of getting 800, or at least > 720, it really doesn't pay to skip any questions.

For example, on two of the 8 tests in The Official SAT Study Guide, I answered 65 right, and 2 wrong.

But because 2/4 off my 65 was still 64.5, my score got rounded back up to 65. I'd narrowed down my choices to two possibilities on each of my errors, so I had a 50/50 chance of getting that perfect score. Even if I'd gotten one right and one wrong, the real 50/50, I'd have scored 66 – ¼, still a 66, still well in the 99th percentile of all test takers.

But if I'd never gotten an 800, if my average wasn't about 767, and I only answered 65, then still got 4 wrong, my raw score would drop to 60, = ing a 710 scaled score. Maybe worth the risk if you tend to score just below 700, but again, the only point in skipping questions is to give yourself more time to make certain of your answers on other questions. And you don't get to see all 67 at once. Consider skipping two at most if you're intent on cracking that 700 mark on CR, but no more than two.

And if your goal is closer to 600?

You'll need a raw score of 46 to get a 600.

This means you can skip about a third of all the critical reading questions and get 600 on Critical Reading.

Of course, you'd have to get all 46 you do answer right.

And how hard can that be?

OK, maybe kind of.

So, go for the 650.

Seriously.

No sense skipping 20 questions when the odds say that even if you can eliminate only one of the five choices in each, you'll still end up only +1 on your raw score.

Already you're at 47 Raw Score, 610 scaled. And again:

The only real reason to skip questions is to maximize your time on questions you can get.

Remember: you don't know everything.

Nobody does.

Just KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW!

The more confident you are of the answers you do choose, the more your chances of skipping seven or eight questions will pay off.

Again the chief benefits / reasons for skipping any questions on the SAT – and no more than 8-- are

1) Having more time to work on the questions you feel are easiest; and

2) Not feeling rushed when taking the test; feeling relaxed. You know what your goal is, and you've got plenty of time to get there.

So:

1) Know what raw score you need to get 750 or 650.
2) Don't shoot for anything less than 650.
3) Use process of elimination effectively.

And above all. . .

4) HAVE FUN!

Review the tactics in Barron's, pages 20 – 23 in the latest edition, paying particular attention to #s, 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 15 and 16.

Think of the SAT as a game, and

Let's Play SAT!