Wordiness errors are found in the Improving Sentences and Improving Paragraphs section of the test. Wordy sentences generally need to be rewritten, and generally have a problem that is more than a few words long, so this is not an error that appears in the Identifying Sentence Error questions.
Wordy sentences often (but not always) contain one of two things:
- Passive Voice (The subject comes at the end of the sentence, after the verb)
- "Fish and chicken are foods that I like
- This sentence is in the passive voice. As a result, it is much wordier than it needs to be ("I like fish and chicken")
- A form of the "to be" verb
- Ex: "Fish and chicken, being good foods, are things I like to eat."
- This sentence is much wordier than it needs to be, and it is redundant ("Fish and chicken are good foods that I like to eat")
- The forms of the "to be" verb are am, is, are, was, were, has or have been, had been, will have been, being, and to be
Wordy sentences don't have to contain "to be" verb or the passive voice (although most do). Sometimes, wordy sentences simply use more words than necessary to say what needs to be said:
- Many uneducated people who have never attended school feel bad about their lack of education
- This sentence is very redundant and uses more words than necessary
- The sentence could be written to say 'Many uneducated people feel bad about their lack of education (since uneducated means "never attended school" so we don't need to repeat ourselves
The passive voice is always an error. The use of the "to be" verb is not always an error, but you should be aware that it usually is and look very closely at sentences or answer choices that contain one of these verbs. General wordiness and redundancy is not always an error, but it can definitely be improved and so for improving sentences, an answer choice that eliminates this redundancy/extra words should be sought.
