30 Day Prep

When you begin the English portion of the exam, sometimes referred to as the Writing portion of the exam (never to be confused with the Essay), you may be startled by the types of questions that you see. The writing section is notorious for posing confusing formats for students who are unfamiliar with the section prior to seeing the test itself. This speaks towards preparedness, of course, but if you follow the below strategies, you should be pretty well equipped to be able to handle the section.

1) The Writing section is broken down by passages. The content of the passages is not relevant for the majority of the test, because the main goal of the section is not reading comprehension, but rather word usage and passage development. To be able to perform well on this section, you need to be constantly moving back and forth between passages and questions.

2) Unlike the Reading section, do not spend your time reading through the passages before you answer the aligned questions. If that was the intent of the examiners, they would not have structured the exam to look the way it does. The point of providing you with a side by side comparison of passages to questions is to have you actively answering questions as you read the passage. The majority of questions you will see are grammar based, so knock those out before you get to any subjective questions. These types of questions can easily be identified, primarily by their length, but also by the different choices available.

3) Where applicable, do not be afraid of the "NO CHANGE" option. This option often intimidates students, because students tend to feel as though it would never be a possibility. If it is listed as an option, it is just as likely the answer as any of the rest of the choices provided. Ensure that you do not discount your "NO CHANGE" option. One of the most important concepts to remember throughout the Writing portion is "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." There is no better scenario to apply this sentence to than the idea of a "NO CHANGE" option being provided as an answer choice. The examiners are intending to see how well you understand sentence structure, grammar rules, paragraph composition, and overall writing skills. It is quite possible that they are asking to see if you would be able to make the best choice out of the provided ones by sticking with the original one.

4) Sentence structure and word choice questions are quite common on the exam. This means that you may have to correct the flow of a sentence that is not necessarily incorrect, but could be improved. To this means, make sure that you are always choosing the most likely correct answer when you work through the Writing section. You will not be able to always choose the correct answer, because writing is, as its nature is, subjective. Therefore, ensure that you work through the exam by eliminating all of the rest of the possibilities, such that you are left with the most likely answer.