I hereby collect worth-noting sentences extracted from GMAT Verbal Sentence Correction books.
GMAT OFFICIAL GUIDE
1. Unlike Mesopotamian cities, in which buildings were arranged haphazardly, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses were laid out on a north‐south, east‐west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard‐size bricks
=> Comparison - contrast
=> Modifying clause
2. New data from United States Forest Service ecologists show that for every dollar spent on controlled small‐scale burning, forest thinning, and the training of fire‐management personnel, seven dollars are saved that would have been spent on extinguishing
3. Like the grassy fields and old pastures that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting
when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, the bird itself is vanishing in the northeastern United States as a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices
=> The point of this comparison is that both the habitat and the bird are disappearing for similar reasons. The comparison must use comparable grammatical components; the bird itselfis a noun phrase and matches the noun phrases grassy fields and old pastures
4. The results of two recent unrelated studies support the idea that dolphins may share certain cognitive abilities with humans and great apes; the studies indicate that dolphins are capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors—an ability that is often considered a sign of self‐awareness—and of
spontaneously grasping the mood or intention of humans.
=> "are capable of: > "have the ability" which is wordy
5. According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later
merged with spoken language
6. In 1995 Richard Stallman, a well‐known critic of the patent system, testified in Patent Office hearings that, to test the system, a colleague of his had managed to win a patent for one of Kirchhoff’s laws, an observation about electric current first made in 1845 and now included in virtually every textbook of elementary physics.
=> The function of the entire long phrase (observation…physics) that follows one of Kirchhoff ’s laws is to describe that law. It is a noun phrase in apposition
7. Excavators at the Indus Valley site of Harappa in eastern Pakistan say the discovery of inscribed
shards dating to circa 2800–2600 B.C. indicates that the development of a Harappan writing system, the use of inscribed seals impressed into clay for marking ownership, and the standardization of weights for trade or taxation occurred many decades, if not centuries, earlier than was previously believed
8. The Supreme Court has ruled that public universities can collect student activity fees even from students who object to particular activities, so long as the groups given money are chosen without regard to their views
=> Wrong alternate: The Supreme Court has ruled that public universities can collect student activity fees even though students have an objection to particular activities, but the groups that are given the money be chosen without regard to their views
9. Despite the increasing number of women graduating from law school and passing bar examinations, the proportion of judges and partners at major law firms who are women have not risen to a comparable extent
=> Concise expression is particularly important in a long construction; to a comparable extent may
be more concisely expressed as comparably
10. Seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep but running 363 miles across the rugged
wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes at Buffalo, providing the port of New York City with a direct water link to the heartland of the North American continent
=> Wrong alternate: Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes at Buffalo, providing the port of New York City with a direct water link to the heartland of the North American continent
The phrase seldom…deep is the first half of a modifier that describes the Erie Canal. However,
because a comma incorrectly follows deep, this phrase appears to be the entire modifier, which
must agree with the noun or pronoun that immediately follows it. This phrase cannot modify the conjunction but, and it has no referent; but it ranis not a logical or grammatical construction following the modifying phrase. Substituting runningfor it rancreates an adjective phrase parallel to the first adjective phrase (seldom…deep). To contrast the small size reported in the first phrase with the great distance reported in the second, the two phrases may be joined with but; together they create a single modifier correctly modifying the Erie Canal. The Erie Canalis then the subject of the sentence and requires the verb connected to provide a logical statement
11. In 1923, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia, ruling that it was a form of price‐fixing and, as such, an abridgment of the right of contract
12. Researchers have found that individuals who have been blind from birth, and who thus have never seen anyone gesture, nevertheless make hand motions when speaking just as frequently and in virtually the same way as sighted people do, and that they will gesture even when conversing with another blind person
13. Like embryonic germ cells, which are cells that develop early in the formation of the fetus and that
later generate eggs or sperm, embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into different kinds of body tissue
14. Critics contend that the new missile is a weapon whose importance is largely symbolic, more a tool for manipulating people’s perceptions than for fulfilling
15. As an actress and, more importantly, as a teacher of acting, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro
=> Wrong alternate: As an actress and, more importantly, as a teacher of acting, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro
=> The original sentence contains a number of modifiers, but not all of them are correctly expressed. The clause who trained… describes Stella Adler, yet a relative clause such as this one must be placed immediately after the noun or pronoun it modifies, and this clause follows theaterrather than Adler. Replacing who trained with training corrects the error because the phrase training… modifies the whole preceding clause rather than the single preceding noun. Several generations of actors including shows the same error in reverse; includingmodifies the whole phrase, but the two actors named are not generations of actors. The more limiting clause whose ranks included (referring to actors) is appropriate here
16. Whereas a ramjet generally cannot achieve high speeds without the initial assistance of a rocket, scramjets, or supersonic combustion ramjets, can attain high speeds by reducing airflow compression at the entrance of the engine and letting air pass through at supersonic speeds
17. It will not be possible to implicate melting sea ice in the coastal flooding that many global warming models have projected: just as melting ice cubes do not cause a glass of water to overflow, so melting sea ice does not increase oceanic volume
18. Many stock traders in the United States have set out to become global investors, convinced that limiting their investments to the U.S. stock market, even though it is certainly home to the stocks of some of the world’s great corporations, restricted their gains.
19. Although some had accused Smith, the firm’s network manager, of negligence when the crucial data went missing, the CEO defused a situation that was quite tense, by publicly stating that the debacle was not Smith’s fault
20. Before 1988, insurance companies in California were free to charge whatever rates the market would bear, needing no approval from regulators before raising rates. 21. In a speech before the Senate Banking Committee, the chairman of the Federal Reserve painted an optimistic picture of the economy, suggesting to investors that the central bank would not lower interest rates in the near future
22. Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were 23. During his exotic vacation in the tri-state area, Mike visited tourist hotspots such as Trenton, New Jersey; Rochester, New York; and Hamden, Connecticut.
24. Scientists have recently found evidence that black holes—regions of space in which matter is so concentrated and the pull of gravity so powerful that nothing, not even light, can emerge from them—probably exist at the core of nearly all galaxies and that the mass of each black hole is proportional to its host galaxy
25. Mariana believes that altruism exists even in today’s day and age — that people can help others without any selfish motives is not an idea that is too unrealistic to exist in a society that thrives on rewarding individualism
26. Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand
27. Ranked as one of the most important of Europe's young playwrights, Franz Xaver Kroetz has written 40 plays; his works—translated into more than 30 languages—are produced more often than those of any other contemporary German dramatist
28. Less successful after she emigrated to New York than she had been in her native Germany, photographer Lotte Jacobi nevertheless earned a small group of discerning admirers, and her photographs were eventually exhibited in prestigious galleries across the United States
29. Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay, robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller, less distinctive, and less in demand
30. Not trusting themselves to choose wisely among the wide array of investment opportunities on the market, many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be bought directly
31. Even though Clovis points, spear points with longitudinal grooves chipped onto their faces, have been found all over North America, they are named for the New Mexico site where they were first discovered in 1932
32. Climatic shifts are so gradual as to be indistinguishable from ordinary fluctuations in the weather. The features of the idealized sculpture portrait are so unrealistic as to constitute what one scholar calls an artificial face
33. Ryunosuke Akutagawa‘s knowledge of the literatures of Europe, China, and Japan was instrumental in his development as a writer, informing both his literary style and the content of his fiction
34. Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions
35. According to scientists who monitored its path, an expanding cloud of energized particles ejected from the Sun recently triggered a large storm in the magnetic field that surrounds Earth, brightening the Northern Lights and possibly knocking out a communications satellite
36. While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers
37. According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language
38. In the seventh century B.C., the Roman alphabet was adapted from the Etruscan alphabet, which in turn had been adapted in the previous century from a western Greek alphabet, which itself had been adapted earlier in the same century from the Phoenician alphabet
39. We humans have a strong psychological defense mechanism and if faced with bereavement, we quickly go in to a denial mode, with some of us sometimes instead getting fixated on the mundane details of life
40. In no other historical sighting did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as in its return of 1910-1911
41. In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas
42. Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the south are hurting crops and therefore raising corn and soybean prices
43. The results of two recent unrelated studies support the idea that dolphins may share certain cognitive abilities with humans and great apes; the studies indicate that dolphins are capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors—an ability that is often considered a sign of self-awareness—and of spontaneously graspingthe mood or intention of humans
44. Often major economic shifts are so gradual as to be indistinguishable at first from ordinary fluctuations in the financial markets
45. Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else
46. Normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater, which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and replaces them with minerals
47. Estimating the expansion rate of the universe is a notoriously difficult problem because there is no single yardstick by which all distances can be measured
48. The use of lie detectors is based on the assumption that lying produces emotional reactions in an individual that, in turn, create unconscious physiological responses
49. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should recognize that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously
50. Thai village crafts, like those of other cultures, have developed through the principle that form follows function and incorporate readily available materials fashioned using traditional skills
51. Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet
52. The completion in 1925 of the Holland Tunnel, linking Manhattan with New Jersey’s highways and permitting 2,000 cars to pass through each tube every hour, was hailed as the decade’s $48 million engineering masterpiece
53. Gusty westerly winds will continue to usher a seasonably cool air mass into the region while a broad area of high pressure builds, which will bring fair and dry weather for several days
54. Discovered in 1930 and once considered the ninth planet in the solar system, Pluto lost its planetary status in 2006, a development that prompted the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to create a new definition for the term ‘planet’, and is now categorized as just one out of 70,000 icy objects in the Kuiper Belt that measure 100 kilometers across or more
55. Scientists have determined that the inner ear assists in awareness of body orientation, since people with disorders of the inner ear have been found to have increased difficulty in maintaining balance
56. Marconi conceived of the radio as a tool for private conversation that could substitute for the telephone; instead, it has become precisely the opposite, a tool for communicating with a large, public audience
57. Ramón pointed out that food high in whole-grain fiber creates the energy we need to fight illnesses—as do vegetables and lean proteins
58. Positing an enormous volcanic explosion at the end of the Permian period would explain the presence of a buried crater, of the element iridium (originating deep within the earth), and of quartz shattered by high-impact shock waves
59. Many utilities obtain most of their electric power from large coal and nuclear operations at costs that are sometimes two to three times higher than those for power from smaller, more efficient plants that can both make use of waste heat and take advantage of the current abundance of natural gas
60. While the cost of running nuclear plants is about the same as for other types of power plants, the fixed costs that stem from building nuclear plants make the electricity they generate more expensive
61. Last week local shrimpers held a news conference to take some credit for the resurgence of the rare Kemp's ridley turtle, saying that their compliance with laws requiring turtle-excluder devices on shrimp nets is protecting adult sea turtles
(Last month I conducted a proper checklist to review my lifestones, believing that this act of self reflection requiring frank search into the inside will help me understand myself better!)
62. While most of the earliest known ball courts in Mesoamerica date to 900–400 b.c., waterlogged latex balls found at El Manati and representations of ballplayers painted on ceramics found at San Lorenzo attest to the fact that the Mesoamerican ballgame was well established by the mid-thirteenth century b.c
63. Heating oil and natural gas futures rose sharply yesterday, as long-term forecasts for much colder temperatures in key heating regions raised fears that supplies would be insufficient to meet
64. About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia, with milky sap, that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless
65. Discovered in 1884, the asteroid lda, named for a mythological nymph who cared for the infant Jupiter, is in the middle of the belt of asteroids that orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter
66. While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to settle them
67. In 1913, the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan mailed 120 of his theorems to three different British mathematicians; only one, G. H. Hardy, recognized the brilliance of these theorems, but thanks to Hardy's recognition, Ramanujan was eventually elected to the Royal Society of London
68. November is traditionally the strongest month for sales of light trucks, but sales this past November, even when compared with sales in previous Novembers, accounted for a remarkably large share of total vehicle sales
69. Tides typically range from three to six feet, but while some places show no tides at all, others, such as the Bay of Fundy, have tides of more than thirty feet
70. The 19-year-old pianist and composer performed his most recent work all over Europe, Asia, and North America last year, winning prestigious awards in both London and Tokyo for his achievement at such a young age, and he hopes to continue composing now that he has returned to Chicago
71. The World Wildlife Fund has declared that global warming, a phenomenon that most scientists agree is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels, will create havoc among migratory birds by altering the environment in ways harmful to their habitats
72. The absence of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or how they survived economically
73. In 2000, a mere two dozen products accounted for half the increase in spending on prescription drugs, a phenomenon that is explained not just by the fact that drugs are becoming more expensive but also by the fact that doctors are writing many more prescriptions for higher-cost drugs
74. Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from Gandharan grey schist
75. Over the past ten years cultivated sunflowers have become a major commercial crop, second only to soybeans as a source of vegetable oil
76. Because it regarded the environmentalists as members of an out-of-state organization, the city council voted to deny them permission to participate in the parade
77. Unlike Mesopotamian cities, in which buildings were arranged haphazardly, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses were laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks
78. Critics contend that the new missile is a weapon whose importance is largely symbolic, more a tool for manipulating people's perceptions than for fulfilling a real military need
79. Elizabeth Barber, the author of both Prehistoric Textiles, a comprehensive work on cloth in the early cultures of the Mediterranean, and Women's Work, a more general account of early cloth manufacture, is an authority on textiles in ancient societies
80. Discussion of greenhouse effects has usually focused on whether Earth would grow warmer and to what extent, but climatologists have indicated all along that precipitation, storminess, and temperature extremes are likely to have the greatest impact on people
81. Whereas a ramjet generally cannot achieve high speeds without the initial assistance of a rocket, scramjets, or supersonic combustion ramjets, can attain high speeds by reducing airflow compression at the entrance of the engine and letting air pass through at supersonic speeds
82. Once numbering in the millions worldwide, wolves have declined to an estimated 200,000 in 57 countries, some 11,000 of them to be found in the lower 48 United States and Alaska
83. As more and more factories move out of the cities each year, manufacturing jobs, historically the first step into the job market for the urban poor, become fewer and fewer
84. In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources has resulted from expanding development, changes in climate, and pollution, so that future supplies in some of the more arid areas are a concern
85. The Anasazi settlements at Chaco Canyon were built on a spectacular scale, with more than 75 carefully engineered structures, of up to 600 rooms each, connected by a complex regional system of roads
86. Seismologists studying the earthquake that struck northern California in October 1989 are still investigating some of its mysteries: the unexpected power of the seismic waves, the upward thrust that threw one man straight into the air, and the strange electromagnetic signals detected hours before the temblor 87. Carbon dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere and helps regulate the planet’s surface temperature, is constantly being exchanged between the atmosphere on the one hand and the oceans and terrestrial plants on the other
88. Concerned that economic recovery is not as complete as previously hoped, wealthier consumers have begun to limit travel and slow investments, decreasing nonessential spending overall and , creating further financial setbacks
89. Aggressive cost-cutting campaigns have shown promise in the company's publishing division, the home to a few new startups that have grown at the same pace as the startups disrupting the industry through free journalism and user-submitted articles
90. Diabetes, together with its serious complications, ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer
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