Drill 4 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
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SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 4) is a Reading & Writing practice drill covering Hard Words in Context. It contains 5 original questions developed by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
Hard SAT Words in Context questions ask you to choose the word or phrase that most precisely completes the sentence. The answer is rarely an obscure word; difficulty comes from three plausible distractors that all nearly fit, with one signal in the sentence pinning the correct choice.
Question 1. The committee's report was praised for its ______ tone: rather than condemning either side outright, it laid out the competing claims and left the judgment to readers.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The contrast engine is 'rather than condemning either side... left the judgment to readers,' which calls for a tone that withholds its own verdict. Dispassionate means free of bias or emotion, exactly the neutral stance described. (B) censorious means harshly critical, the opposite of refusing to condemn. (C) perfunctory means done with minimal care, which says nothing about neutrality and contradicts a report praised for laying claims out fully. (D) effusive means gushing with feeling, which clashes with a report that deliberately holds back.
Question 2. Early reviewers found the symphony ______: its themes never recurred or built on one another, so the work struck them as a sequence of unrelated fragments rather than a unified whole.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The colon explains the blank: themes that 'never recurred or built on one another' and read as 'unrelated fragments rather than a unified whole' describe a lack of connection. Disjointed names precisely that absence of coherence. (A) monotonous means unvaryingly uniform, the opposite of a work that splinters into unrelated fragments. (B) bombastic means pompous or inflated, which describes excess rather than fragmentation. (D) austere means severe or unadorned, which could describe a spare style but says nothing about whether the parts cohere.
Question 3. The following text is adapted from Henry James's 1881 novel The Portrait of a Lady.
She had a great desire for knowledge, but she really preferred almost any source of information to the printed page; she had an immense curiosity about life, and was constantly staring and wondering.
As used in the text, what does the word "curiosity" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (B) The signal is 'constantly staring and wondering' paired with 'a great desire for knowledge,' which frames curiosity as an eager wish to find things out. Inquisitiveness captures that hunger to know. (A) oddity is a common dictionary sense of 'curiosity,' but the text describes a trait of hers, not a strange object. (C) souvenir, a curio or keepsake, is another noun sense the passage gives no room for. (D) suspicion implies distrust, which the warm, wondering tone contradicts.
Question 4. Although the negotiator appeared ______ in public, repeating that no concession was possible, privately she had already drafted the terms of a compromise.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (D) 'Although... in public... privately she had already drafted... a compromise' sets a contrast: her public posture must be the opposite of compromise. Intransigent means refusing to budge, matching 'no concession was possible.' (A) candid means frank, but her public stance is shown to be misleading, not honest. (B) equivocal means deliberately vague, yet 'no concession was possible' is flatly unambiguous. (C) conciliatory means willing to compromise, which describes her private position, not the public one the blank names.
Question 5. The essayist's late prose grew increasingly ______: where his early work spelled out every step of an argument, these final pieces gesture toward conclusions and trust the reader to supply the connections.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The contrast is between early work that 'spelled out every step' and late work that merely 'gesture[s] toward conclusions' and leaves connections to the reader. Elliptical describes prose that omits what it expects the reader to infer. (B) verbose means wordy, the opposite of leaving things out. (C) derivative concerns originality, not compression, and nothing compares the work to a source. (D) pedantic means fussily detailed, which fits the early 'every step' prose, not the spare late style.