Sometimes you see on your GMAT practice test a difficult Sentence Correction that has the entire sentence underlined. This means you can’t fall back on any part of the sentence, or trust that any phrase, clause, or single word is correct. So how should you approach these types of GMAT questions? Even with a high intimidation-factor, we can “attack” these challenging SC’s with these 5 tips.

1. Always start with the Subject/Verb. Begin by identifying the main subject and the predicate verb. The subject is the noun that is doing the action of the sentence. It may not always be the first noun you see in the sentence. The predicate verb is the main action of the sentence that is being done by the subject. There could be many verbs in the sentence, so don’t be fooled!

2. Chunk It Out. Parse out the rest of the sentence. Is there a long prepositional phrase, a lot of adjectives, relative clauses that begin with “that,” etc. You should also look for common “splits” like broken parallelism or verb issues. If you need to use your scratch pad to write out the sentence in shorthand and draw marks around parts of it, go for it!

3. Focus on Modifiers. These sentences are long because they have a lot of added clauses. See if you can mentally “eliminate” them to focus on the bare bones of the sentence. Make sure you understand how each modifier relates to the rest of the sentence. Is it clear what it is modifying? Does it help or hinder the meaning?

4. Slow down! Plan to spend at least 10 extra seconds on these questions. Don’t rush through them, as the answer choices may be closer together. Remember to look for subtle differences in style. The GMAT loves to include active voice v. passive voice in harder SC questions.

5. Before you select your answer, re-read the whole sentence. Check to make sure the meaning is unambiguous and that it’s clear, despite its length.

Check out this Sentence Correction question:

The spending on durable goods such as household appliances and automobiles is a cyclical pattern that depends on if the overall economy is healthy, whereas non-durable goods like food and shelter remain constant regardless of the economy.

(A) The spending on durable goods such as household appliances and automobiles is a cyclical pattern that depends on if the overall economy is healthy, whereas non-durable goods such as food and shelter remain constant regardless of the economy.

(B) Regardless of the economy, spending on non-durable goods such as food and shelter remains constant even though spending on durable goods such as household appliances and automobiles is a cyclical pattern that depends on whether the overall economy is healthy.

(C) Spending on durable goods such as household appliance and automobiles follows a cyclical pattern that depends on the health of the overall economy, whereas spending on non-durable goods such as food and shelter remains constant regardless of the economy’s health.

(D) Whether the overall economy is healthy determines the cyclical pattern of spending on durable goods such as household appliances and automobiles, whereas non-durable spending such as food and shelter remains constant regardless of the economy.

(E) The cyclical pattern of spending on durable goods such as household appliances and automobiles depends on whether the overall economy is healthy but non-durable goods such as food and shelter remain constant regardless of the economy.

We can see that we have (1) awkward phrasing in “depends on if” and (2) an unparallel comparison between “the spending” and “non-durable goods.” B, D, and E lack the required parallelism. C is clear grammatically, stylistically, and has a straightforward meaning. The correct answer is (C).