GMAT Crash Course in Effective Writing (III)

5a(9). Cliche

Cliches are overused expressions, expressions that may once have seemed colorful and powerful but are now dull and worn out. Time pressure and anxiety may make you lose focus; and that is
when cliches may slip into your writing. A reliance on cliches will suggest you are a lazy thinker. Keep them out of your essay.

WEAK: Performance in a crisis is the acid test for a leader.

FORCEFUL: Performance in a crisis is the best indicator of a leader's abilities.

Putting a cliche in quotation marks in order to indicate your distance from the cliche does not strengthen the sentence. If anything, it just makes weak writing more noticeable. Notice whether or not you use cliches. If you do, ask yourself if you could substitute more specific language for the cliche.

International Students: You should avoid any regional expressions. Students from Britain and the commonwealth nations should particularly beware of using local expressions that are not used in America.

Exercises

1. You have to take this new fad with a grain of salt.
2. The politician reminds me of Abraham Lincoln: He's like a diamond in the rough.
3. A ballpark estimate of the number of fans in the stadium would be 120,000.
Answers

1. You need not take this new fad very seriously; it will surely pass.
2. The politician reminds me of Abraham Lincoln with his rough appearance and warm heart.
3. I estimate that 120,000 fans were in the stadium.

5a(10). Jargon

Jargon includes two categories of words that you should avoid. First is the specialized vocabulary of a group, such as that used by a group of people such as doctors, lawyers, or baseball coaches. Second is the overly inflated and complex language that burdens many student essays. You will not impress anyone with big words that do not fit the tone or context of your essay,
especially if you misuse them.

If you are not certain of a word's meaning or appropriateness, leave it out. An appropriate word, even a simple one, will add impact to your argument. As you come across words you are unsure of, ask yourself "Would a reader in a different field be able to understand exactly what I mean from the words I've chosen?" "Is there any way I can say the same thing more simply?"

MBA candidates are particularly prone to using MBA jargon. When you go to business school you will find that MBAs have a language of their own with words such as "incentivize" or "M & A". Indeed, you will find that a large part of the lasting benefit of business school is learning the proper MBA language so that you will better relate with the MBAs who dominate the business world.

For now, however, the GMAT is not the place for MBA jargon or any jargon for that matter. Keep these phrases inside of big glass buildings (replace them with the words in parenthesis):

z optimize
z time frame
z utilize (use)
z finalize (end, complete)
z conceptualize (imagine, think)

z maximize
z originate (start, begin)
z facilitate (help, speed up)
z bottom line
z parameter (boundary, limit)
z user-friendly (responsive, flexible, easy-to-understand)
z input/output
z blindside
z downside
z ongoing (continuing)

1. With reference to the poem, I submit that the second and third stanzas connote a certain despair.
2. Allow me to elucidate my position: This horse is the epitome, the very quintessence of equine excellence.
Answers:

1. When the poet wrote the second and third stanzas, he must have felt despair.
2. This is a fine horse.

5b. Grammar & Syntax

We cover the main grammar and syntax issues most students have. If your English skills are strong, skim through most of the material.

5b(1). Subject-Verb Agreement

The verb and subject must agree. If the subject is singular, the verb must be singular. If the subject is plural, the verb must be plural. Test writers will try to fool you by using writing unusual phrases that make it difficult to tell if the subject is singular or plural.

1) If a singular subject is separated by a comma from an accompanying phrase, it remains singular:

The child, together with his grandmother and his parents, is going to the beach.

wrong: Frank, accompanied by his student, were at the studio.
right: Frank, accompanied by his student, was at the studio.

wrong: His mastery of several sports and the social graces make him a sought-after prom date.
right: His mastery of several sports and the social graces makes him a sought-after prom date.

His is singular and makes is singular.

2) Collective nouns, such as family, majority, audience, and committee are singular when they act in a collective fashion or represent one group. They are plural when they act as individuals.

Collective nouns will usually be singular in Sentence Correction sentences.

A majority of the shareholders wants the merger.
Here the "majority" acts as a singular, and therefore has a ingular verb: "wants." The jury were in disagreement.
Collective noun, plural verb (because they are acting as individuals). Note: this is very rare and highly unlikely to come up on test day.

3) Phrases separated by and are plural, phrases separated by or are singular. Neither/nor and either/or are also singular.

Ted, John, and I are going.

Because they are seperated by and the plural form is used

4) Be careful you choose the right subject in sentences in which the verb precedes the subject.

wrong: There is many reasons why I can't help you.
right: There are many reasons why I can't help you.

Here reasons is the subject.

tricks: beware of confusing singular/plural words:

Singular Plural
Medium Media
Datum Data