January 4 Free Tip!

Grammar based passages come first in on the EOC and are easy to spot since they number every sentence.  You should read these passages, but you do not need to read them slowly and carefully.  You will probably have a question or two that deals with the overall meaning of the passage.  Reading it fast should suffice.

The first few questions will read like this: What needs to be changed to correct sentence (number of sentence)?

When you encounter this type of question, DO NOT READ THE ANSWER CHOICES.  Instead, read the sentence with that number on it.  As you do so, take note of the following:

  1. Any homophones (your/you're, to/too/two, there/their/they're, its/it's)

  2. Any plurals or apostrophe s

  3. A long sentence.

By doing so, you are more inclined to find one of these easy answers.  Homophones are often misused and appear regularly on the EOC.  Don't miss these.  Plurals may be misspelled or they may use an 's to make a plural.  That will always be wrong.  A long sentence may have a subject/verb agreement problem.

If you were to have read the answer choices, you might miss one of these easy ones and get sidetracked by a tricky wrong answer (like one that involves a comma).