Today is our very last installment of the types of Reading Comprehension programs – congratulations on getting through all of them! We’re closing our mini-series with a look at Word in Context questions; questions that test your ability to figure out how a word is being used in sentence. You can recognize these questions as they often ask ” The word x could best be replaced by…” or “Which of the following words are closest in meaning to word x” Using the following question an example, here are 5 tips that can help you through this section.
Most of what has been presented to this committee is to stir up feelings in your souls and has not the slightest bearing on proving conspiracy in this case.
In this context word “bearing” has closet meaning to:
a) connection
b) posture
c) endurance
d) location
e) resemblance
- Let go of your first associate with the word. You may hear “bearing” and think location, you may think connection, you may even think posture – and you’re right; bearing can mean all those things, but what you must do is figure out what bearing means in the context of this sentence.
- Rewrite the question. To help you let go of the meaning you attach to the word, write the question as a fill in the blank, like this: “Most of what has been presented to this committee is to stir up feelings in your souls and has not the slightest ___ on proving conspiracy in this case.
- Substitute words and eliminate what doesn’t fit. Run though the list of choices, reading each one into the blank. Right away we can easily eliminate posture, endurance and location.
- Check the rest of the sentence, and beyond for clues. It’s almost certain that eliminate wrong answers will still leave you with a choice to make, so consider both the context of the sentence in question, and the sentances within the larger passage for clues.
- Go with your gut. If you’ve done everything you can do; trust your instinct and make a choice – do not waste time staring at the page. Remember, you’ve got a 50% chance of guessing correctly!
Remember, the best defense against the SAT is a strong offense, so get busy practicing the questions, [test:'sat-vocabulary' expanding your vocabulary], and get comfortable answering as many questions as you can before test day.
Read the full article: 5 Ways to get Through Word in Context