Revise the sentence to fit the passage
A sentence can be grammatically correct and still be the wrong revision. Read it inside the paragraph and decide what that sentence has to accomplish there. The focus in this chapter is rhetorical fit: the revision must preserve the passage's purpose and line of reasoning before its smoothness becomes relevant.
Read the passage before fixing the sentence
A writing question cannot be answered correctly from the underlined sentence alone. Before evaluating any revision option, read enough of the surrounding passage to know what the writer is trying to accomplish at that specific point. Who is the audience? What is the writer asking for? Where is the paragraph headed?
State what the writer needs this sentence to do
Every sentence in a passage has a job: introduce a claim, supply evidence, address an objection, or transition to a new point. Before comparing revision options, state that job in one phrase. An option that does something else, however well written, is not the answer.
Keep the revision inside the passage's purpose
A passage written to persuade a specific audience toward a specific action has a purpose every sentence should serve. A revision option that is accurate, well written, and even interesting can still be wrong if it serves a different purpose than the one the passage is pursuing.
When a correct sentence still misfits the paragraph
Some incorrect options are not grammatically wrong at all. They are complete, correct sentences that simply do not do the job the passage needs at that point: supplying a fact when the passage needs a transition, or a transition when the passage needs evidence.
Use surrounding sentences as evidence
The sentences immediately before and after a revision point are the most direct evidence for what that point needs to do. A revision that fits smoothly with the sentence before it and sets up the sentence after it is usually the strongest candidate.
Watch for a revision that changes the claim
A revision option can quietly shift a passage's claim, making it stronger, weaker, or different, while still reading as a plausible sentence. Compare what each option actually asserts, not just how each option sounds. Guarantees ("would eliminate"), absolutes ("every", "only"), and hedges so heavy that no request remains ("might possibly help a few") are the usual culprits.
Choose precision over extra flourish
A longer or more elaborately worded option is not automatically the better revision. When two options are both accurate, the one that states the passage's point precisely, without unnecessary ornamentation, usually serves the passage better than one that adds flourish without adding function.
Check the result back inside the paragraph
After selecting a revision, reread the full paragraph with that option in place. A revision that seemed correct in isolation can still create a repetition, a logical gap, or an awkward transition once it is read inside its actual paragraph.
EXAM DIAMOND. A writing question is asking whether a sentence fits this passage's purpose and audience, not only whether it is well written. Read the surrounding sentences before evaluating any revision option.
Worked drills
Drill 1: State the sentence's job
A letter to a town council argues for extended library hours. One paragraph opens: "Some council members have raised the cost of extended staffing as a concern." The next sentence must respond to that concern.
In one phrase, state what job the next sentence needs to do, given the sentence before it.
Model reasoning: The next sentence's job is to address the cost concern directly, either by acknowledging its validity and proposing a way to manage it, or by explaining why the concern is smaller than it appears. A sentence that changes the subject, or that simply repeats the request for extended hours without engaging the cost concern, would fail this specific job even if it were well written.
Drill 2: Identify the off-purpose sentence
"Working parents who pick up their children from after-school programs rarely reach the library before it closes. Libraries have existed in some form for thousands of years. High school students who rely on the library's computers for homework are often turned away just as they begin their assignments."
One sentence here does not serve the paragraph's purpose. Identify it and explain what job it fails to do.
Model reasoning: The sentence "Libraries have existed in some form for thousands of years" does not serve the paragraph's purpose. The paragraph's job is to document specific, current groups of residents who are inconvenienced by the library's hours; a general historical fact about libraries supplies no evidence for that specific claim and interrupts the paragraph's building case.
How to use the practice set
The practice set that follows gives you two original writing passages with numbered sentences: a letter to a town council and a proposal for a community garden. For every question, run the same routine: read the whole passage, say what the sentence must do, check the sentences on either side, and then compare the options for purpose, claim, and precision. Wrong answers here are usually polite, correct sentences doing the wrong job.