there's an English idiom that is often used to criticize someone's perspective on an issue we say that they can't see the forest for the trees this means that they can't see the big picture because they're too focused on the specific details I think this phrase applies nicely to sat grammar especially questions involving different verb forms some people get so carried away with the specific types and tenses of verbs that they miss how those verbs affect the big picture structure of the sentence if you start categorizing every verb as finite non-finite transitive intransitive jarn and participles you're going to lose your grasp on what's actually happening inside of the sentence AR go in this lesson is to stay focused on the big picture sentence structure and we'll categorize verbs in very simple ways based on how they look specifically whether the verb starts with the word to or ends with the letters ing but remember that not every sat verb tense question will be about this two and ing rule watch my verb tense lesson to learn how to recognize the three different verb tense rules in this case the obvious two and ing answer choices would tell us that this question is probably about how the verb affects the sentence structure let's read the sentence with the correct answer Choice a and see how it sounds some some legal experts who cite the 14th amendments due process clause argue that the Bill of Rights applies to the states to me this just sounds right the sentence sounds complete let's compare it to Choice B with the two form of the verb and try to listen very carefully to how my voice sounds at the end of the sentence some legal experts who cite the 14th amendments due process clause to argue that the Bill of Rights applies to the states did you hear it I can hear that my voice goes up at the end as if I'm expecting more words at the end of the sentence Choice B makes it sound like the sentence stops too soon it's incomplete Choice C with Ing has the same problem some legal experts who cite the 14th amendments due process clause arguing that the Bill of Rights applies to the states the best way to understand what's Happening Here is to look at a very similar question in fact the only difference is that I deleted the word who from the beginning and now Choice B is actually correct some legal experts cite the 14th amendment's due process clause to argue that the Bill of Rights applies to the states sounds good right well let's change the sentence one more time for this third example all I've done is add a comma right before the blank everything else is the same except for the correct answer which is now Choice C some legal experts cite the 14th amendment's due process clause arguing that the Bill of Rights applies to the states so what's going on here how is it possible that sat questions that are almost identical have completely different correct answers well as I said at the beginning it comes down to sentence structure the two and ing versions of a verb aren't powerful enough to Anchor a sentence on their own in example one argue is the main verb some legal experts argue the word who starts off an extra Clause that describes the experts we could cut that Clause out and still have a complete sentence but in example two the loss of the word who makes site the main verb so the core sentence is now some legal experts site the 14th amendments due process clause the use of the word two allows us to continue the thought adding extra information that sounds like an action but is really more of a description we often use the two form for the second verb in a linked pair in example three the comma is a very clear indicator that we've added an extra Clause to the end of our sentence and ing verbs are great for starting out extra comma Clauses the main sentence is the same as it was an example to some legal experts cite the 14th amendments due process clause in fact this is why many 2 and ing sat questions are actually about punctuation examples two and three say the exact same thing but two verbs don't usually get commas while ing verbs often do get commas it really comes down to the structure of the sentence and unfortunately there are infinite ways to build sentences in English so there aren't many absolute rules we can follow for this sat grammar rule but let's try to get a few General guidelines here are two strategies that are a bit contradictory first it's very important that you read the entire sentence here's an example of what can happen if we only read the words near the blank it sounds very obvious that choice a is correct her Works retell the plots of classic novels if we back up a little further it still sounds fine emojis in her Works retell the plots of classic novels but if we go back to the beginning it completely changes our answer to Choice B author Jee vvus uses only emojis in her Works to retell the plots of classic novels the blank now represents the second verb in the sentence so we should use the two form in my experience cutting the sentence Too Short is the main reason why students get the two and ing questions wrong however we often need to cut the sentence down so that we can hear the structure better try using this hierarchy so that you don't lose out on parts that are essential first get rid of any extra sentences if we're interested in sentence structure then we should stick to the sentence with the blank that includes getting rid of the opposite side of compound sentences with semicolons colons dashes and conjunctions like and watch my lessons on all of these punctuation marks to better understand how they join sentences together second get rid of obvious extra Clauses that inter up a sentence double dashes and parentheses are the most obvious you should also learn to recognize a positives which typically give extra descriptions using two commas Clauses that start with a comma and which are also extra attachments to a sentence if you still can't figure out the overall sentence structure then start removing extra descriptions like adjectives prepositional phrases and clauses that start with that you typically won't see commas with these descriptions so you'll need to have a good sense for what can be cut at some point you should reveal how the blank relates to the main sentence let's practice this this sentence doesn't have a blank but let's see how we would cut out the extra parts to get to the core sentence first we should recognize that the comma and the word and let us connect two complete sentences if the blank were in the yellow we would be able to ignore everything before the end instead Let's ignore the yellow and focus on the first sentence next it's relatively easy to eliminate the Double Dash Interruption it's also easy to get rid of the which clause at the beginning which is clearly marked with two commas the sentence also starts with an ing word and a separate comma Clause you can see that there's already not much left to this sentence if we needed to keep going we could get rid of adjectives like various and three-dimensional the word that often marks the beginning of an extra Clause that we might be able to ignore by now if the blank were here we would hopefully be able to hear that we need the main verb employees the two and ing versions wouldn't work here because they'd create sentence fragments a simple version of the main sentence is crystallography employs techniques to map the structures we've cut out a lot of details but we've kept the main structure in other words we've chopped down a lot of trees but we still have a forest on the other hand if the blank were over here we would know that we need the two verb because map is the the secondary verb in the pair if we had crossed out employees though then we might think that the sentence says crystallography Maps the structures so you can see how easy it can be to cut too much sometimes an extra part contains the blank here we would need the ing form because we're adding a comma Clause onto the main sentence the United Nations recognized The Field's importance we also have an ing comma Clause at the beginning of the sentence and it functions the same way adding extra info to our main sentence but within the extra witch Clause we have a verb without the two or ing that's because witch clauses typically need a primary verb actually the main verb for the which clause is the verb is right next to it explores is the main verb of the that Clause that's within our wit Clause we have another that Clause later on that also uses the main verb form but notice that immediately after it is the two form what this Clause is technically saying here is materials Engineers use the structures to design new products and Technologies as you can see the two and ing rule is complicated there are so many possibilities and the SAT can throw all sorts of question varieties at you try to be as flexible as possible and listen as best you can for the underlying structure of the sentence remember that even just a comma can completely change the correct answer let's finish up with a final review of how you should handle the two and ing questions first you have to make sure that the question is actually testing this grammar rule before you get carried away breaking the sentence apart many questions with verbs and the answer choices will be about singular and plural verbs or past present and future tenses make sure you watch my lesson on how to identify each type of verb tense question but if the answer choices seem to include the two and ing versions of a verb then you're probably going to need to think about the sentence structure as contradictory as it sounds you need to make sure you read everything so that you comprehend the big picture sentence structure but you also need to remove extra pieces of the sentence so you can figure out how the blank relates to the whole cut down some trees but preserve the forest and as we saw the rules for each verb form can be complicated but we generally need a primary verb to Anchor a sentence the subject will do that action which and that Clause is also use primary verbs in most cases the two and ing verbs are typically second they follow the main verb to add extra description or they start extra comma Clauses but try your best to listen for the answer you don't often get these rules wrong when you speak so trust how the choices sound when you read them in your head and luckily the two andg rule only comes up once or twice on each sat so it's not very many points the other grammar rules including the other two verb tense rules are much more straightforward so prioritize locking them down and when the two and ing does come up I hope I've given you a few good strategies to make them easier to solve thanks for watching