Whats the Deal with Improving Sentences SAT Writing Section Guide and Advice

What's the Deal with Improving Sentences SAT Writing Section Guide and Advice SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips There’s nothing harder than trying to figure out what someone else thinks is â€Å"the best,† and Improving Sentences asks you to do just that. Luckily, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve that allow you to move through these questions with confidence. In this post,we’ll look at the writing skills these questions are designed to test and how to use those skills to answer the questions correctly. Improving Sentencesquestions havea section of a sentence underlined and 4 alternatives (plus the option to keep the sentence the way it is). The instructions say that these questions â€Å"test correctness and effectiveness of expression.† This means that the sentences aren’t necessarily wrong (though they usually are), they can also just be bad or confusing. We have to find the best, rather than simply the correct, way of saying something. But the types of choices and mistakes are the same in every test, so let's talk about the most common one and how to â€Å"improve† it. #1 Issue: Conciseness, Conciseness, Conciseness Almost all Improving Sentences questions involve conciseness; even if it’s not the main problem in the question, some of the incorrect answer choices will be wordy to the point of sounding like nonsense. Just to get a feel for what we mean by this, Here are some concise sentences and their less concise evil twins: Most dinosaur nests were hidden beneath vegetation from potential predators. Most dinosaurs laid eggs in hidden nests on the ground that was extremely well protected from other dinosaurs so that they would be more unlikely to be eaten by them. You can see that all the information in the longer sentence is included in the shorter one: things can only be hidden beneath vegetation if it's on the ground, and the word â€Å"predators† means hunting animals. The phrase â€Å"hidden from...predators† can only mean that the point is to keep the eggs safe. Here’s another fun one: Because bacteria and other organisms can penetrate eggshells and decompose the contents, very few fossilized eggs found today contain any embryonic material. For the reason that the walls of eggs can be penetrated by bacteria and other small organisms that feed on organic material, the stone-like fossilized eggs people find today are usually lacking any remnants of embryos, whether intact or not. Okay, the second sentence here is a bit long even for the SAT, but it drives home the point that there is virtually no limit to the amount of irrelevant and repetitive information that can be stuffed into a sentence. And the SAT loves to push that particular envelope. The key is the information: can the same meaning be conveyed in fewer words? Below, we look at the information in the sentences above: Short Sentence Long Sentence Because For the reason that bacteria and other organisms can penetrate eggshells and decompose the contents the walls of eggs can be penetrated by bacteria and other small organisms that feed on organic material very few...contain any embryonic material are usually lacking any remnants of embryos, whether intact or not fossilized eggs found today the stone-like fossilized eggs people find today As you can see, any extra information that the second sentence offers is not relevant to the point of the sentence: the appearance of the eggs, what organisms feed on (that’s obvious from the fact that they’re eating dino eggs), and whether the embryos are intact or not. Those things don’t matter here, because the sentence is about the absence of embryonic material in the eggs. Common Problem: Repeated References to Something Another way to spot an SAT-designed bad sentence is repeated references to a person or thing, like so: The dinosaur eggs, those which had been incubated by machines, they were almost ready to hatch. Can you spot the nouns and pronouns in this sentence that refer to the same thing (the eggs)? Go ahead, we’ll wait. There are three: â€Å"eggs,† of course, â€Å"those,† and â€Å"they.† In this case, you can just take out the second two and the sentence is SAT-approved. Generally, we only need to use a pronoun when there are two things going on in the sentence: After the incubators had warmed, turned and monitored them for two months, the eggs were ready to hatch. Above, there’s the actions the incubators took in gestating the eggs, and then the statement that they are ready to hatch. That makes the two references, â€Å"eggs† and â€Å"they,† necessary. In the previous sentence, the only thing that’s happening is that they’re ready to hatch; the rest of the information is extra. Even More Common Problem: Gerunds, a.k.a. â€Å"-ing† verbs First of all, let’s get one thing straight: a gerund, or â€Å"-ing† verb, cannot by itself be the only verb in a sentence. Let’s take â€Å"feeling† as an example: Can we say â€Å"She feeling better†? No, we have to say she is feeling better. We can use it to start a sentence, like â€Å"Feeling better, she walked downstairs.† But the operative verb in this sentence is walked, not feeling. Students overuse â€Å"-ing† verbs, because they are more all-purpose than other verb conjugations. But they have limited utility in good writing, and even less utility on the SAT. (Bonus SAT vocab lesson: â€Å"utility† means usefulness.) The SAT is constantly presenting us with these kinds of sentences: The dinosaur eggs were very delicate, the reason for this being that they needed to be incubated. Then they’ll give us some alternatives to the underlined section: (A) (same as original) (B) and the reason being you have to incubate them (C) for the reason that incubation was needed by them (D) because of the fact that their incubation is necessary and vital (E) because they required incubation Strategy: How to Eliminate Carefully and Effectively The key to maneuvering successfully through the SAT is elimination. The choices are designed to overwhelm and confuse students, which is part of the reason they’re overhauling the test in 2016. This is also one of the many reasons the SAT requires preparation- the strategy of elimination is actually quite refined and powerful, if you do it correctly. So rather than point out why the right answer is right, we’re going to use the â€Å"-ing† verbs example above to give you a sample of our elimination strategy. Step 1: Which choice is the longest? Above, it’s (D), and It’s almost never the answer. You can safely eliminate it on this question type: if the others all seem blatantly wrong, then consider it. Step 2: Which is the most straightforward? Active voice is always better than passive voice: â€Å"they required incubation† is always preferable to â€Å"incubation was needed by them†- eliminate (C). The second person- †you†- is oftenwrong on the SAT, unless the writer is speaking directly to the reader. When it’s used to mean â€Å"a person,† it’s confusing, vague, and inaccurate. Eliminate (B). These steps leave us with only (A), the original, and (E), the shortest answer choice. Hopefully (E) clearly sounds better to you (see, here I’m talking directly to you, the reader, so the second person in appropriate). This strategy allows us to work through questions methodically and efficiently without losing our respective minds. It works for all the Reading and Writing questions (and some Math ones), but is especially necessary when your choices are just heaps of words with one â€Å"best† option stuck in between. If you liked this post you may like: What is a good SAT score? A bad SAT score? SAT Writing Guide Part II: Essays SAT Writing Guide Part I: Improving Paragraphs

Battle of Fallen Timbers - Northwest Indian War

Battle of Fallen Timbers - Northwest Indian War The Battle of Fallen Timbers was fought August 20, 1794 and was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795). As part of the treaty ending the American Revolution, Great Britain ceded to the new United States the lands over the Appalachian Mountains as far west as the Mississippi River. In Ohio, several Native American tribes came together in 1785, to form the Western Confederacy with the goal of dealing jointly with the United States. The following year, they decided that the Ohio River would serve as the border between their lands and the Americans. In the mid-1780s, the Confederacy began a series of raids south of the Ohio into Kentucky to discourage settlement. Conflict on the Frontier To deal with the threat posed by the Confederacy, President George Washington instructed Brigadier General Josiah Harmar to attack into Shawnee and Miami lands with the goal of destroying the village of Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne, IN). As the US Army had essentially been disbanded after the American Revolution, Harmar marched west with a small force of regulars and approximately 1,100 militia. Fighting two battles in October 1790, Harmar was defeated by Confederacy warriors led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket. St. Clairs Defeat The following year, another force was dispatched under Major General Arthur St. Clair.  Preparations for the campaign began in early 1791 with the goal of moving north to take the Miami capital of Kekionga. Though Washington advised St. Clair to march during the warmer summer months, incessant supply problems and logistical issues delayed the expeditions departure until October. When St. Clair departed Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati, OH), he possessed around 2,000 men of which only 600 were regulars. Attacked by Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and  Buckongahelas on November 4, St. Clairs army was routed. In the battle, his command lost 632 killed/captured and 264 wounded. In addition, almost all of the 200 camp followers, many of whom had fought alongside the soldiers, were killed. Of the 920 soldiers who entered the fight, only 24 emerged uninjured. In the victory, Little Turtles force only sustained 21 killed and 40 wounded. With a casualty rate of 97.4%, the Battle of the Wabash marked the worst defeat in the history of the US Army.   Armies Commanders United States Major General Anthony Wayne3,000 men Western Confederacy Blue JacketBuckongahelasLittle Turtle1,500 men Wayne Prepares In 1792, Washington turned to Major General Anthony Wayne and asked him build a force capable of defeating the Confederacy. An aggressive Pennsylvanian, Wayne had repeatedly distinguished himself during the American Revolution. At the suggestion of Secretary of War Henry Knox, the decision was made recruit and train a legion which would combine light and heavy infantry with artillery and cavalry. This concept was approved by Congress which agreed to augment the small standing army for the duration of the conflict with the Native Americans. Moving quickly, Wayne commenced assembling a new force near Ambridge, PA at a camp dubbed Legionville. Realizing that previous forces had lacked training and discipline, Wayne spent much of 1793 drilling and instructing his men.   Titling his army the Legion of the United States, Waynes force consisted of four sub-legions, each commanded by a lieutenant colonel. These contained of two battalions of infantry, a battalion of riflemen/skirmishers, a troop of dragoons, and a battery of artillery. The self-contained structure of the sub-legions meant they could operate effectively on their own.   Moving to Battle In late 1793, Wayne shifted his command down the Ohio to Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati, OH). From here, units moved north as Wayne built a series of forts to protect his supply lines and the settlers in his rear. As Waynes 3,000 men moved north, Little Turtle became concerned about the Confederacys ability to defeat him. Following an exploratory attack near Fort Recovery in June 1794, Little Turtle began to advocate in favor of negotiating with the US. Rebuffed by the Confederacy, Little Turtle ceded complete command to Blue Jacket. Moving to confront Wayne, Blue Jacket assumed a defensive position along the Maumee River near a copse of fallen trees and close to British-held Fort Miami. It was hoped that the fallen trees would slow the advance of Waynes men. The Americans Strike On August 20, 1794, the lead elements of Waynes command came under fire from Confederacy forces.   Quickly assessing the situation, Wayne deployed the his troops with his infantry led by Brigadier General James Wilkinson on the right and Colonel John Hamtramck on the left.   The Legions cavalry guarded the American right while brigade of mounted Kentuckians protected the other wing.   As the terrain appeared to preclude the effective use of cavalry, Wayne ordered his infantry to mount a bayonet attack to flush the enemy from the fallen trees.   This done, they could be effectively dispatched with musket fire. Advancing, the superior discipline of Waynes troops quickly began to tell and the Confederacy was soon forced out of its position. Starting to break, they began to flee the field when the American cavalry, charging over the fallen trees, joined the fray. Routed, the Confederacys warriors fled towards Fort Miami hoping that the British would provide protection. Arriving there found the gates closed as the forts commander did not wish to start a war with the Americans. As the Confederacys men fled, Wayne ordered his troops to burn all of the villages and crops in the area and then withdrawal to Fort Greenville. Aftermath Impact In the fighting at Fallen Timbers, Waynes Legion lost 33 dead and 100 wounded. Reports conflict regarding the Confederacys casualties, with Wayne claiming 30-40 dead on the field to the British Indian Department stating 19. The victory at Fallen Timbers ultimately led to the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended the conflict and removed all Confederacy claims to Ohio and the surrounding lands. Among those Confederacy leaders who refused to sign the treaty was Tecumseh, who would renew the conflict ten years later.