Drill 13 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
Review your answers above to learn from any mistakes.
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 13) 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. Most weed seeds buried by autumn plowing do not ______ at once; they remain inert in the cold soil and break into growth only after a long winter has passed.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (B) The contrast between lying 'inert' and later breaking 'into growth' points to the seeds' first stir of life, which the cold withholds, and germinate names exactly that initial sprouting. (A) flourish describes thriving well after sprouting, not the first emergence. (C) wither runs the wrong way, toward decay. (D) propagate means to multiply or spread offspring, something a grower or the plant does later, not the single seed's own first push into life.
Question 2. Because the storm track could still shift, the forecasters stressed that their three-day outlook was strictly ______: useful for planning but certain to be revised as new readings arrived.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) An outlook 'certain to be revised as new readings arrived' is one held only for the moment, which is what provisional means. (B) conclusive inverts that sense, since a conclusive outlook would not be revised. (C) alarming speaks to how threatening the forecast is, a point the sentence never raises. (D) routine comments on how ordinary the outlook is, not on whether it is settled.
Question 3. The auction catalog noted that the rare dollar had never entered general use; decades in a sealed vault had left its surface ______, without a single nick or trace of wear.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (D) A surface 'without a single nick or trace of wear' is one in untouched condition, which pristine describes. (C) scuffed names the very marring the sentence rules out, so it runs opposite to the evidence. (B) circulated contradicts 'never entered general use.' (A) counterfeit raises whether the coin is genuine, a separate matter from the physical condition described here.
Question 4. Critics praised the new rendering of the epic as remarkably ______: although it modernized the syntax, it preserved the poet's images rather than reshaping them to suit modern taste.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The rendering updates the grammar yet keeps the original images intact, honoring the source where it matters, and faithful names that loyalty to the original. (A) literal is the near-miss, but a literal translation reproduces wording mechanically, and this version is credited with the opposite: modernizing syntax while holding the images, which is fidelity to meaning rather than word-for-word matching. (B) verbose concerns wordiness, never mentioned here. (D) inventive points the wrong way, since the version is praised for not reshaping the images.
Question 5. The following text is adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's story A Scandal in Bohemia.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and then stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.
As used in the text, what does the word "singular" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (A) The word describes a manner so characteristic of the man that the narrator knows it on sight, so singular here means distinctive or peculiar to him. (B) solitary draws on the 'single' root, but the fashion is a way of looking, not a state of being alone. (C) occasional would describe how often he does it, which the sentence does not address. (D) rapid speaks to speed, irrelevant to the introspective quality being noted.