Words in Context

What are "words in context" questions?

On the Reading and Writing section of your SAT, some questions will ask you to select
the most logical and precise word or phrase in a given context.
Words in context questions will look like this:

In recommending Bao Phi’s collection Sông I Sing, a librarian noted that pieces by the
spoken-word poet don’t lose their ______ nature when printed: the language has the same
pleasant musical quality on the page as it does when performed by Phi.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) jarring
B) scholarly
C) melodic
D) personal

How should we determine the most "precise" word?

A "precise" word is one that means exactly what it should in a given situation: it will fit its
sentence perfectly and reinforce the text's meaning.
This last bit is important. We're not just looking for a word that sounds right or looks good.
Instead, we need to understand the text and select the word with a meaning that best
matches the point the text is making. This means that, when attempting words in context
questions, reading comprehension is just as important as our knowledge of vocabulary.
To help us identify the best word in context, we should focus on two things: context and
connotation.

Context
Context refers to the specific scenario we're attempting to match a word or phrase to. To
understand the context, we must read the provided text carefully.
Because we need to know the meaning of the word we're looking for, that meaning will be
provided a second time within the text. This results in many prompts for words in context
questions following a similar pattern of
Statement. Restatement.

The trick then is to match the word we're looking for with the equivalent idea in the other
statement.

For example, let's look back at our example item prompt:

In recommending Bao Phi’s collection Sông I Sing, a librarian noted that pieces by the
spoken-word poet don’t lose their ______ nature when printed: the language has the same
pleasant musical quality on the page as it does when performed by Phi.

SAT with Talal 1

 Words in Context

We have two matching statements here:

The poems keep their _____ nature when printed.
The poems have the same pleasant musical quality when "on the page".

Notice how the blank in the first statement lines up with the phrase pleasant musical
quality in the second statement. This is the context that tells us what word that we should
choose: the word that most closely means "pleasant" and "musical".

Connotation
"Connotations" are the associations that we have with different words. One common
example of connotation is whether a word feels positive or negative. Words can have similar
meanings but vastly different connotations.
For example, the words "promising" and "ominous" both mean that something is predictive
of the future. However, while "promising" has a strongly positive connotation, "ominous"
has a strongly negative connotation. Therefore, these words can't logically applied to the
same context.
If you're stuck on a words in context question, try focusing on these connotations. Is the
sentence positive? Then the word we choose should be positive too!

For example:
The basketball star's promising play this season suggests a bright future.
The dark, ominous clouds on the horizon suggest a storm is coming.
Based on context clues like "bright" and "storm", it's clear where the positive and negative
words are most appropriate.

Strategies:
1) Plug in your own word and find the answer choice that matches

The only potential difficulty involved in this approach is that sometimes, even if you supply a
perfectly adequate synonym for the word in question, the correct answer will be a less
common word, or the second meaning of a common word - one that you may not recognize
as having the same meaning as the word you supplied.

2) Plug each answer choice into the sentence

Frequently, you'll be able to hear that a particular choice does not sound correct or have the
right meaning within the context of a sentence. The only potential downside is that
sometimes, as is true for #1, the correct word is not a word you would think to use. As a
result, you might talk yourself out of choosing that answer (or eliminate it immediately)
because you think it sounds funny.

3) Play positive/negative, then plug in

SAT with Talal 2

 Words in Context

If you can determine from context whether the word is positive or negative, you can often
eliminate at least two or three of the answer choices. You can then plug the remaining
answers back into the sentence and see which one works best.
While some people feel most comfortable using a single approach for all vocabulary-in-
context questions, it is also true that certain questions lend themselves better to certain
approaches. On some straightforward questions you may find it easiest to plug in your own
word, while on other, less clear-cut questions, a combination of positive/ negative and
process of elimination might be the most effective way of working toward the answer.

Important: sometimes you will not be able to determine the meaning of a word from the
sentence in which it appears. In such cases, you need to establish a slightly larger context.
Read from the sentence above to the sentence below - one of those sentences will very
likely contain a synonym for the word in question and thus for one of the answer choices.

Avoid unknowns
On test day, you may encounter some words that you don't know. Many test-takers make
the mistake of selecting words that they don't know in the choices instead of ones they
know better and "feel right". These students think the words they know better must be
"traps", because they might "seem too easy". This strategy can often backfire.

To raise your chances of getting words in context questions correct, try this instead:

• Eliminate what you can from the words you do know

• Select an option from what remains.

Note: The only time you should select a word you don't know is if you can confidently
eliminate all of the other choices.

Example:
The following text is from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.
[Jay Gatsby] was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of
movement that is so peculiarly American—that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting
work in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.
This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of
restlessness.
As used in the text, what does the word “quality” most nearly mean?

A) Characteristic
B) Standard
C) Prestige
D) Accomplishment

SAT with Talal 3

 Words in Context

Ans: Like many words, "quality" can mean different things in different contexts. It can be a
noun that means something like "attribute", but it can also describe how good something is
(e.g, "high quality" vs "low quality"). How is it being used here?
"This quality" is phrased in a way that refers back to something in the previous sentence. In
particular, it seems to link to "that resourcefulness of movement...), which the previous
sentence works hard to describe. That whole phrase, in turn, is being use to characterize the
way is behaving.
So, "quality" is being used to describe an "attribute" of how Gatsby is behaving. (A),
"characteristic", matches this use.

Example:
Osage Nation citizen Randy Tinker-Smith produced and directed the ballet Wahzhazhe,
which vividly chronicles Osage history and culture. Telling Osage stories through ballet is
______ choice because two of the foremost ballet dancers of the twentieth century were
Osage: sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) An unpredictable
B) An arbitrary
C) A determined
D) A suitable

Ans: D
This is the best choice. “Suitable” means “appropriate for a particular purpose”. Since the
text indicates that two of the best ballet dancers of the twentieth century were Osage, we
can infer that the author believes that ballet is a very suitable artform for telling Osage
stories.

Example:
Some foraging models predict that the distance bees travel when foraging will decline as
floral density increases, but biologists Shalene Jha and Claire Kremen showed that bees’
behavior is inconsistent with this prediction if flowers in dense patches are ______: bees will
forage beyond patches of low species richness to acquire multiple resource types.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) depleted
B) homogenous
C) immature
D) dispersed

Ans: B
This is the best choice. The text after the colon tells us that bees will travel beyond dense
flower patches that have “low species richness” to find different kinds of flowers.
“Homogenous” means “of the same kind” or “alike”, which fits this context perfectly.

SAT with Talal 4

 Words in Context

Example:
Biologist Jane Edgeloe and colleagues have located what is believed to be the largest
individual plant in the world in the Shark Bay area of Australia. The plant is a type of
seagrass called Posidonia australis, and it ______ approximately 200 square kilometers.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) acknowledges
B) produces
C) spans
D) advances

Ans: C
This is the best choice. “Spans” means “extends over a distance of” or “encompasses”. Since
we’re talking about the world’s largest plant, it makes sense to say that it “spans” about 200
square kilometers.

Example:
Business researcher Melanie Brucks and colleagues found that remote video conference
meetings may be less conducive to brainstorming than in-person meetings are. The
researchers suspect that video meeting participants are focused on staring at the speaker
on the screen and don’t allow their eyes or mind to wander as much, which may ultimately
______ creativity.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

A) recommend
B) criticize
C) construct
D) impede

Ans: D
This is the best choice. The first sentence tells us that video meetings are “less conducive to”
(meaning less good for) brainstorming. This suggests that the video meeting participants’
focus is bad for their creativity. “Impede” means “delay” or “prevent”, which works
perfectly in this context.

SAT with Talal 5