MCAT Test Writing Sample Testing Tips - Avoiding Common Grammatical Mistakes

The writing sample section of the MCAT test is specifically designed to evaluate an individual's ability to analyze a particular subject and convey that analysis in an essay. As a result, it is essential for an individual to be able to turn a series of different, but related ideas into an essay that is both coherent and concise. The trained readers that will be evaluating each essay will expect some small grammatical mistakes because they realize that the exam-taker is attempting to write the essay in a very short amount of time. However, it is still extremely important for an individual to try to avoid grammatical mistakes wherever possible because too many mistakes can significantly impact the individual's essay score. One of the best ways to avoid these types of mistakes is to be aware of the most common errors that individuals usually make.

First, it is important to make sure that you are using the appropriate punctuation and that you are only using punctuation in the appropriate places. This means that each sentence should end with a period or an exclamation point, each question should end with a question mark, each item in a series of items should have a comma after it, and every coordinating conjunction such as "but" or "and" that is linking two independent clauses together should have a comma before the conjunction. This also means that you need to be careful not to use punctuation in inappropriate places such as using too many commas or using commas to separate two independent sentences that are not joined by a coordinating conjunction since these independent sentences should be broken down into separate sentences or separated by a semicolon. Secondly, it is important to try to avoid run-on sentences or extremely long sentences as these types of sentences will usually be more confusing and ultimately lower the overall quality of the essay. A run-on sentence refers to two independent sentences that have been put together into one sentence without any punctuation. In other words, a run-on sentence is one long sentence without the correct punctuation, that actually should be broken down into two separate sentences or at least have a coordinating conjunction and a comma separating the two sentences. You may also want to break an extremely long sentence into two or more separate sentences if you have a sentence that is punctuated correctly, but is hard to follow.

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