Grammar Handbook

for GMAT

CONTENTS
PART 1

1. INTRODUCTION ..1

2. TERMS WE SHOULD KNOW ..3

PART 2

3. PRONOUNS ..19

4. VERBS, VERBALS, & TENSE ..28

PART 3

5. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS ..41

6. AGREEMENT BETWEEN SUBJECTS AND VERBS ..49

PART 4

7. ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE ..56

8. PREPOSITIONS ..60

9. MODIFIER PLACEMENT ..68

PART 5

10. STYLE ..72

11. NOTORIOUS CONFUSABLES ..83

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1. INTRODUCTION

When you planned management as your career, you became aware that you had to go through
some difficult aptitude tests such as the GMAT. That was all right with you. You decided to work
hard.

But you didn't expect grammar to be a part of the test. And when somebody told you that you
had to revise almost all the grammar that was there in the world, you were really worried. The
typical reaction was:

"O God! I’ve left grammar so long back! Even in school, I never cared much for the grammar
sessions. And now all that I remember is the color of the cover of 'Wren & Martin'. Grammar of
all things!"

Well, what has been said above is partly true for some of us; and for some of us, wholly true.

Take heart; you do not have to analyze or diagram a sentence. Nor do you have to become
Masters in English to crack your entrance test.

But good managers are definitely good communicators.

This book is written from the point of view of helping students who are appearing for GMAT.
The book will cover most of the areas in grammar that you are tested for in these examinations.
Brushing up on your school grammar will also help.

First, let us put the entrance tests in proper perspective from the grammar/verbal ability point
of view. GMAT is an aptitude test. Success here is not possible without aptitude and hard work.

We are not tested for grammar directly, but through situations that will require grammatical as
well as verbal skills. Grammatical 'bloomers' are thrown at us in sentences, which we are
required to rectify by choosing the grammatically correct option.

In certain situations the options will give us some clues to what is wrong with the key
sentence/phrase. At times, we are required to find this out based on our knowledge of
grammar. Situations are not impossibly difficult. But the test writers presume that we are
reasonably aware of the correct grammatical structures in English.

This book is intended to complement the classroom sessions at Sharp Minds™ GMAT Prep

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Much of what is mentioned in this book and more will be discussed in the classroom. In a way,
this handbook is the 'notes' that a diligent student would prepare by attending the lectures.
This book, hence, will be an essential reference while you are preparing for the verbal section of
GMAT. Principles dealt with here are those that our content development team has seen as
important for the test. However, they are not exhaustive.

You must love words if you intend to be a good communicator. A good communicator thinks
clearly. He is clear about the ideas that he wants to communicate. And he knows the kind of
words and their arrangement that will carry these ideas across to another person.

All good communicators essentially use the correct form of the language. When communication
becomes difficult within the framework of the rules for the correct structure, these men break
the rules, but in doing so they create a non-standard form that is awe-inspiring in its effect.

Effective communication should be the premise from which we begin our study of the language.
For, to be good managers, we have to be good communicators.

This book will brush you up on the grammatical principles you have half forgotten, and will
cover most of the areas that you have to remember for GMAT.

However, there is no substitute to the habit of reading. Read widely and deeply. And
remember, the sum of what you know today is the sum of what you have read and experienced
so far. The English you know today is the result of what you have read earlier.

We will begin at the beginning. We will make you familiar with the different terms, some of
which we will be using in the classroom. It will become much easier for you to understand the
concepts when you are already familiar with these terms

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2. TERMS WE SHOULD KNOW TO STUDY GRAMMAR

While going through this section ‘Terms We Should Know…” you are likely to feel that
you are studying hardcore grammar. That is because here you are introduced to all the
relevant and different terms that that will make your reading of grammar easy.

If you are not familiar with the terms ‘debtor’ and ‘creditor’, you cannot really progress
in accounts, right?

In that case mastering ‘debtor’ and ‘creditor’ is not hardcore accounts, but you are
making yourself familiar with the terms essential before you can proceed.

You have to be patient here. Spend as much time as you like, reading and rereading if it
helps. But do not unduly pressurize yourself. You may not need so much grammar,
anyway.

But do make a sincere effort to understand these terms clearly.

SENTENCE, PHRASE AND CLAUSE

A sentence is a group of words which makes a complete sense.

A Sentence has two parts

1. Subject
2. Predicate.

Subject : The person, thing or idea we are speaking about in a sentence is the
Subject of the Sentence

Predicate : What is said about the Subject is called Predicate.

Subject Predicate
Management is a challenging career.
The challenges of Management are many.

Now look at the predicate in the above sentence. “is a challenging career” is called a
phrase. That is, it is a group of words which makes sense, but not complete sense.

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But if you say “which is a challenging career”, it contains a predicate in itself – “is a
challenging career”. But it is different from a sentence in that it still does not make
complete sense. “which is a challenging career’ is then called a clause.

PARTS OF SPEECH

The words in English are classified into eight groups or ‘parts of speech’ depending on
their function in a sentence.

They are:

1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Verbs
4. Adjectives
5. Adverbs
6. Conjunctions
7. Prepositions
8. Interjections

This classification is from traditional grammar. You will see that a word functions as
more than one part of speech in different sentences. Hence the classification is neither
absolute nor unquestionable. However, familiarity with these terms helps.

1. NOUNS

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.

Whatever exists, we assume, can be named, and that name is a noun.

Proper noun, which names a specific person, place, or thing (Amitabh, Prime Minister,
India, Middle East, Hinduism, God, the Congress Party), is almost always capitalized.

Common nouns name everything else, things that usually are not capitalized. (man, city,
country, chair etc.)

Compound Nouns are combination of different nouns and often hyphenated

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daughter-in-law, half-moon, and stick-in-the-mud.

Categories of Nouns

Nouns can be classified further as

 Count nouns, which name anything that can be counted (four books, two
continents, a few dishes, a dozen buildings)

 Mass nouns (or non-count nouns), which name something that can’t be counted
(water, air, energy, blood)

 Collective nouns, which can take a singular form but are composed of more than
one individual person or items (jury, team, committee, furniture, luggage).
We should note that some words can be either a count noun or a non-count noun
depending on how they’re being used in a sentence:

He got into trouble. (non-count)

He had many troubles. (countable)

Experience (non-count) is the best teacher.

We had many exciting experiences (countable) in college.

Abstract nouns, by which we mean the kind of word that is not tangible, such as
warmth or peace

2. PRONOUNS

Generally (but not always) pronouns stand for (pro + noun) or refer to a noun, an
individual or individuals or thing or things (the pronoun’s antecedent) whose identity is
made clear earlier in the text.

[ There is a separate section on Pronouns, where all the Pronouns have been listed]

At times, we are bewildered by sentences like:

They say that bananas are better than apples.

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They is a pronoun referring to someone, but who are they? Doctors? Whom do they
represent? Not all pronouns will refer to an antecedent, however.

Everyone here is appearing for GMAT.

The word “everyone” has no antecedent.

[The problem of agreement between a pronoun and its antecedent and between a pronoun and its verb is
treated in another section on Pronouns.]

This section will list and briefly describe the several kinds of pronouns.

Kinds Of Pronouns:
-- Personal -- Demonstrative -- Indefinite -- Relative
-- Reflexive -- Intensive -- Interrogative -- Reciprocal

Personal Pronouns

English nouns usually do not change form except for the addition of an -s ending to
create the plural or the apostrophe + s to create the possessive.

Dogs - ending in – s plural of dog.

Dog’s - ’s – possessive of dog. (Dog’s tail)

Personal pronouns (which stand for persons or things) change form according to their
various uses within a sentence. Thus I is used as the subject of a sentence (I am happy.),
me is used as an object in various ways (He hit me. He gave me a book. Do this for me.),
and my is used as the possessive form (That’s my car.) The same is true of the other
personal pronouns: the singular you and he/she/it and the plural we, you, and they.
These forms are called cases.

When a personal pronoun is connected by a conjunction to another noun or pronoun, its

case does not change.

We would write “I am taking a course in Rocket Science”; if Amisha is also taking that
course, we would write “ Amisha and I are taking a course in Rocket Science.”
(Notice that Amisha gets listed before “I” does. This is one of the few ways in which
English is a “polite” language.)

The same is true when the object form is called for: “Professor Priyanka gave all her
books to me”; if Amisha also received some books, we’d write “Professor Priyanka gave
all her books to Amisha and me.”

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When a pronoun and a noun are combined [which will happen with the plural first-
person (we) and the plural second-person (you) pronouns] choose the case of the
pronoun that would be appropriate if the noun were not there. That is, just ignore the
noun and choose the correct case of the pronoun. Example :

We students are demanding that the administration give us two hours for lunch.
(ignore students)

The administration has managed to put us students in a bad situation. (ignore

students)

With the second person, we don’t really have a problem because the subject form is the
same as the object form, “you”:

You students are not working hard enough for GMAT.

We expect you students to behave like managers.

Possessive pronoun

Among the possessive pronoun forms, there is also what is called the nominative
possessive: mine, yours, ours, theirs.

Demonstrative Pronouns

The family of demonstratives (this/that/these/those/such) can behave either as

pronouns or as determiners. As pronouns, they identify or point to nouns.

That is incredible! (referring to something you just saw or heard)

I will never forget this. (referring to a recent experience)
Such is my belief. (referring to an explanation just made)

Relative Pronouns

The relative pronouns (who/whoever/which/that) relate groups of words to nouns or

other pronouns.

The student who studies hardest usually does the best.

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The word who connects or relates the subject, student, to the verb studies

[Choosing correctly between ‘which’ and ‘that’ and between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ has been dealt with in the
chapter on Pronouns]

The expanded form of the relative pronouns — whoever, whomever, whatever — are
known as indefinite relative pronouns. A couple of sample sentences should suffice to
demonstrate why they are called “indefinite”:

The coach will select whomever he pleases.

He seemed to say whatever came to mind.

Indefinite Pronouns

The indefinite pronouns (everybody/anybody/somebody/all/each/every/some/none) do

not substitute for specific nouns but function themselves as nouns.

Everyone is wondering if any is left.

One of the chief difficulties we have with the indefinite pronouns lies in the fact that
“everybody” feels as though it refers to more than one person, but it takes a singular
verb.

Everybody is present in the class.

The indefinite pronoun none can be either singular or plural, depending on its context,
and some can be singular or plural depending on whether it refers to something
countable or non-countable.

Intensive Pronouns

The intensive pronouns (such as myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, themselves) which
have the same form as Reflexive Pronouns (see below) consist of a personal pronoun
plus self or selves and emphasize a noun. (I myself don’t know the answer.)

It is possible (but rather unusual) for an intensive pronoun to precede the noun it refers
to. (Myself, I don’t believe a word he says.)

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Reflexive Pronouns

The reflexive pronouns (such as myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, themselves) indicate
that the sentence subject also receives the action of the verb.

Students who don’t read this hand book are only fooling themselves.

She encouraged herself to do well.

What this means is that whenever there is a reflexive pronoun in a sentence there must
be a person to whom that pronoun can “reflect.”

In other words, the sentence “Please hand that book to myself” would be incorrect
because there is no “I” in that sentence for the “myself” to reflect to (and we would use
“me” instead of “myself”).

A sentence such as “I gave that book to myself on my birthday” might be silly, but it
would be correct.

Be alert to a tendency to use reflexive and intensive forms (ending in -self) where they
are neither appropriate nor necessary:

Misuse: These decisions will be made by myself.

Correct: These decisions will be made by me.

Interrogative Pronouns

The interrogative pronouns (who/which/what) introduce questions. (What is that? Who

will help me? Which do you prefer?)

Reciprocal Pronouns

The reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another. They are convenient forms for
combining ideas.

If Amisha gave Sameer a book for his birthday and Sameer gave Amisha a book for her
birthday, we can say,

They gave books to each other.

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If more than two people are involved (let’s say a whole book club), we would say,

They gave books to one another

Reciprocal pronouns can also take possessive forms:

They borrowed each other’s ideas.

3. VERBS

Verbs carry the idea of being or action in the sentence.

I am a professor

The students passed all their courses.

As we will see in this section, verbs are classified in many ways.

First, some verbs require an object to complete their meaning: “Amisha gave _____ ?”
Gave what? She gave a book. These verbs are called transitive.

Verbs that are intransitive do not require objects:

The building collapsed

Some verbs like cause and give can take a direct object and an indirect object . e.g.,

Amisha gave him a book ( a book - direct object ; him - indirect object)

In English, you cannot tell the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb by its
form; you have to see how the verb is functioning within the sentence.

In fact, a verb can be both transitive and intransitive:

The monster collapsed the building by sitting on it.

Verbs are also classified as either finite or non-finite.

Finite verbs make an assertion or expresses a state of being and can stand by itself as
the main verb of a sentence.

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The truck demolished the restaurant.
The leaves were yellow and sickly.

Non-finite verbs (think “unfinished”) cannot, by themselves, be main verbs:

The sliding window . . .

The panting gentleman . . .

Another, more useful term for non-finite verb is verbal.

The various verbal forms are : infinitives, gerunds, and participles.

There is a separate section dealing with these

FOUR VERB FORMS

The inflections (endings) of English verb forms are not difficult to remember. There are
only four basic forms. It would be useful, however, to learn these four basic forms of
verb construction.

Name of verb Base form Past form Present participle Past participle
to work I can work. I work. I worked. I am working. I have worked.
to write I can write. I write. I wrote. I am writing. I have written.

LINKING VERBS

A linking verb connects a subject and its complement.

Sometimes called copulas, linking verbs are often forms of the verb to be, but are
sometimes verbs related to the five senses (look, sound, smell, feel, taste) and
sometimes verbs that somehow reflect a state of being (appear, seem, become, grow,
turn, prove, remain).

Those people are all professors.

Those professors are brilliant.
This room smells bad.
I feel great.
A victory today seems unlikely.

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4. ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence.

The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.

the tall professor

the lugubrious lieutenant
a solid commitment
a month’s pay
a six-year-old child
the happiest, richest man

We will learn more about them in the Section on ‘Adjectives’

5. ADVERBS

Adverbs are words that modify the following

(a) a verb

He drove slowly. (How did he drive?)

(b) an adjective

He drove a very fast car. (How fast was his car?)

(c) another adverb

Amisha moved quite slowly down the corridor. (How slowly did she move?)

In these sentences the adverb is italicized and the word that it modifies is underlined.

Adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or
happened.

Adverbs frequently end in -ly; however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve
an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb.

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The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.

Kinds of Adverbs

Adverbs of Manner
She moved slowly and spoke quietly.

Adverbs of Place
She has lived on the island all her life.
She still lives there now.

Adverbs of Frequency
She takes the boat to the mainland every day.
She often goes by herself.

Adverbs of Time
She tries to get back before dark.
It’s starting to get dark now.
She finished her tea first.
She left early.

Adverbs of Purpose
She drives her boat slowly to avoid hitting the rocks.
She shops in several stores to get the best buys.

We will meet them again in one of the later sections.

6. CONJUNCTIONS

Some words are satisfied spending an evening at home, alone, eating ice-cream right
out of the box, watching ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ re-runs on TV, or reading a good book.
Others aren’t happy unless they’re out on the town, mixing it up with other words;
they’re joiners and they just can’t help themselves.

A conjunction is a joiner, a word that connects (conjoins) parts of a sentence.

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Coordinating Conjunctions

The simple, little conjunctions are called coordinating

Coordinating Conjunctions are: and, but, or, yet, for, nor, so

These have less than four letters. Did you notice that?

When a coordinating conjunction connects two independent clauses, it is often (but not
always) accompanied by a comma:

Sonali wanted to act in ‘Lagaan’, but she had had trouble adapting to the movie’s
bucolic settings.

When the two independent clauses connected by a coordinating conjunction are nicely
balanced or brief, many writers will omit the comma:

Sonali has great looks but she is too dignified for Bollywood.

The comma is always correct when used to separate two independent clauses
connected by a coordinating conjunction. That is to say that the above sentence will still
be correct if you put a comma before ‘but’.

Subordinating Conjunctions

A Subordinating Conjunction comes at the beginning of a Subordinate (or Dependent)

Clause and establishes the relationship between the dependent clause and the rest of
the sentence.

It also turns the clause into something that depends on the rest of the sentence for its
meaning.

Amisha took to the movies as though she had been preparing for this moment all
her life.

Unless we act now, all is lost.

Common Subordinating Conjunctions: after, although, as, as if, as long as, as though,
because, before, even if, even though, if, if only, in order that, now that, once, rather
than, since, so that, than, that, though, till, unless, until, when, whenever, where,
whereas, wherever, while.

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Correlative Conjunctions

Some conjunctions combine with other words to form what are called correlative
conjunctions.

They always travel in pairs, joining various sentence elements that should be treated as
grammatically equal.

Polonius said, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

Whether you win this race or lose it doesn’t matter as long as you do your best.

Correlative conjunctions sometimes create problems in parallel form. We will look at

this in the section for Parallelism.

Here is a brief list of common correlative conjunctions.

both . . . and, not only . . . but also, not . . . but, either . . . or, neither . . . nor
whether . . . or, as . . . as

[Conjunctive Adverbs : The conjunctive adverbs such as however, moreover, nevertheless, consequently,
as a result are used to create complex relationships between ideas.]

7. PREPOSITIONS

A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence.

In itself, a word like “in” or “after” is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere
words.

Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called
prepositional phrases. This whole phrase takes on a modifying role, acting as an
adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or
telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.

Consider the professor’s desk and all the prepositional phrases we can use while talking
about it.


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

You can sit before the desk (or in front of the desk). The professor can sit on the desk
(when he’s being informal) or behind the desk, and then his feet are under the desk or
beneath the desk. He can stand beside the desk (meaning next to the desk), before the
desk, between the desk and you, or even on the desk (if he’s really strange). If he’s
clumsy, he can bump into the desk or try to walk through the desk (and stuff would fall
off the desk). Passing his hands over the desk or resting his elbows upon the desk, he
often looks across the desk and speaks of the desk or concerning the desk as if there
were nothing else like the desk. Because he thinks of nothing except the desk,
sometimes you wonder about the desk, what’s in the desk, what he paid for the desk,
and if he could live without the desk. You can walk toward the desk, to the desk,
around the desk, by the desk, and even past the desk while he sits at the desk or leans
against the desk.
All of this happens, of course, in time: during the class, before the class, until the class,
throughout the class, after the class, etc.

Those words in bold italics font are all prepositions.

Some prepositions do other things besides locate in space or time —

My brother is like my father.

Everyone in the class except Amisha got the answer.”

You can find a list of all the common prepositions in this book under the section
‘Prepositions’

You may have learned that ending a sentence with a preposition is a serious breach of
grammatical etiquette.

 Those who dislike the rule are fond of recalling Churchill’s rejoinder “That is nonsense
up with which I shall not put.”

 We should also remember the child’s complaint: “What did you bring that book that I
don’t like to be read to out of up for?”

It is no wonder that prepositions create such troubles for students for whom English is a
second language.

We say we are at the hospital to visit a friend who is in the hospital. We lie in bed but on

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the couch. We watch a film at the theater but on television.

For native speakers, these little words present little difficulty, but try to learn another
language, any other language, and you will quickly discover that prepositions are
troublesome wherever you live and learn.

The only way in which we can to master the intricacies of preposition usage is through
practice and by paying close attention to speech and the written word.

Keeping a good dictionary close at hand (to hand?) is an important first step.

We will learn more about prepositions in the section ‘Prepositions’

8. INTERJECTIONS

Interjections: are words or phrases used to exclaim or protest or command. They

sometimes stand by themselves, but they are often contained within larger structures.

Wow! I won the lottery!

Oh, I don’t know about that.

I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.

No, you shouldn’t have done that.

Most mild interjections are treated as parenthetical elements and set off from the rest
of the sentence with a comma or set of commas. If the interjection is more forceful,
however, it is followed with an exclamation mark. Interjections are rarely used in formal
or academic writing.

That’s Parts Of Speech for you.

We have covered all the eight broad classes of them in some detail. But you must
always keep in mind that this classification is a part of traditional grammar. Traditional
grammar cannot contain the language that exists today. The same word can function as
different parts of speech in different sentences. Hence not the form of the word but its
function in the sentence will decide what part of speech the word is.

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To sum up, have a look at this:

 The word ‘fish’ is a common noun. The word ‘merchant’ is another common noun.

But what about, Fish merchant?

‘fish’ qualifies the ‘merchant’. Hence it functions like an adjective. If you treat it as a
compound noun, and supply one more adjective to it the term becomes: fried fish
merchant.

Now who or what is fried? The merchant or the fish? The English language can throw up
innumerable ambiguities like this one.

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