When many students start studying for the sentence correction portion of the GMAT, their focus is on specific grammar issues, such as verbs and pronouns. While these types of grammar errors are certainly important to know, you should also make sure you learn any idioms the GMAT considers correct.
An idiom is simply a commonly accepted construction. It is not right for any specific grammatical reason, but is correct because of common usage. Most often these idioms will involve the preposition that should be used after a verb. For example, the verb “aim” is always followed by the preposition “at,” such as in the sentence, “the FDA has banned cigarette ads aimed at children.”
Most of the idioms that are tested on the GMAT will sound correct to native speakers, but a few exist in which more than one common idiom is used in colloquial English; these are especially important to learn. In such cases only one will be correct on the GMAT. Two of the most notable examples of this are “consider” and “model.”
Colloquially, the verb “consider” will often be followed by “to be.” However, the GMAT considers “to be” incorrect. Instead, no preposition should come after the verb” consider.” Thus, “he is considered to be a close friend of the president,” is incorrect. The sentence should read, “he is considered a close friend of the president.”
In the sentence, “Louisiana’s legal system is modeled ___ the Napoleonic code” many people would fill in the blank with the word “on.” Rather, on the GMAT, the correct preposition to use is “after.”
To most students, both options seem correct. Therefore, it is especially important to learn the preferred option on the GMAT.
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