Drill 11 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
Review your answers above to learn from any mistakes.
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 11) 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. Critics expected the seismic-retrofit code to be ______, but its drafters had deliberately left key thresholds open so that engineers could adapt them to local soil conditions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The 'but' opposes the expectation to thresholds left open for adaptation, so critics expected the opposite of adaptable, namely rigid. (B) stringent means demanding or severe, which can coexist with adaptable thresholds and so fails to oppose them. (C) opaque concerns how clear the code is, not how fixed. (D) flexible points toward openness, the same direction as the actual design, so it cannot be what critics expected.
Question 2. Far from being permanent, a glacier is best understood as ______: it gains mass from snowfall at its head and loses it to melt at its snout, never holding the same form for long.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The colon spells out constant gain and loss with 'never holding the same form,' which defines something dynamic. (A) static is the direct inversion, since the sentence describes ceaseless change. (B) enduring leans toward the permanence the opening clause rejects. (D) immense names size, not the change the sentence is about.
Question 3. The following text is adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.
As used in the text, what does the word "lovable" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (B) The list of unappealing traits closes with 'and yet somehow,' signaling that Utterson nonetheless draws affection: he is endearing. (A) attractive points to physical appeal, which the 'lean, long, dusty, dreary' description denies. (D) affectionate describes someone who gives affection, but the word here names the affection he inspires in others. (C) cheerful directly contradicts 'never lighted by a smile.'
Question 4. A camera lens with a wide aperture renders distant background objects ______, an effect portrait photographers prize because it isolates the subject against a soft wash of color.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The background becomes a soft wash of color that sets off the subject, so distant objects are rendered indistinct. (A) luminous speaks to brightness, not blur. (B) distorted overshoots to a warping of shape rather than a gentle softening. (D) inverted describes flipping, which an optics student might recall but which the sentence never raises.
Question 5. Although the beetle's armored shell looks ______, entomologists have shown it is built from microscopic interlocking layers that flex under pressure rather than shattering.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (D) 'Although it looks ___' sets up a contrast with shell layers that flex rather than shattering, so the surface impression is one of stiffness: inflexible. (A) delicate runs the wrong way, since the passage stresses toughness. (B) patterned and (C) translucent describe decoration and light transmission, neither of which the sentence is about.