Drill 25 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 25) 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. Early speech therapists assumed a stammer was a single fixed defect, but modern phonetic analysis shows the disruption is highly ______: the same speaker may produce fluent stretches and then lapse into broken, interrupted syllables within a single sentence.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (B) The sentence sets a single fixed defect against a speaker who is fluent at one moment and broken the next, so the disruption changes from instance to instance, which is what variable names. (D) measured suggests a controlled, even delivery, the opposite of speech that shifts unpredictably. (A) meandering describes wandering off topic, not fluctuation in fluency. (C) resonant concerns the richness of a sound, which the sentence never raises.
Question 2. Negotiators stressed that the framework agreement was strictly ______ rather than final: it set out shared aims the parties could revisit and amend once technical committees had reported.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The contrast 'rather than final' plus 'could revisit and amend' points to something adopted for now and open to change. Provisional names exactly that temporary, subject-to-revision status. (C) binding may seem plausible because treaties often carry binding force, but it suggests a settled legal obligation, whereas the sentence emphasizes an interim framework meant to be revisited and amended. (B) exhaustive speaks to how complete the coverage is, which the sentence does not address. (D) ceremonial describes a formal gesture with no real force, which does not match an agreement that sets out aims to be revisited and amended.
Question 3. Eyewitness researchers caution that human recall is not a faithful recording but a ______ one: a witness retains a few striking details with confidence while quietly discarding much of what was actually in view.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The sentence opposes 'a faithful recording' with memory that keeps 'a few striking details' while 'discarding much' of the rest. A process that keeps some things and drops others is selective. (B) faithful is explicitly rejected by 'not a faithful recording,' so it cannot fill the blank. (A) vivid describes how intense the retained details feel, not the keep-some-drop-most pattern that is the point. (D) sweeping implies broad and all-encompassing, the reverse of a memory that discards most of the scene.
Question 4. The following text is adapted from Jane Austen's 1818 novel Persuasion.
Glowing and lovely in sensibility and happiness, and more generally admired than she thought about or cared for, she had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature around her.
As used in the text, what does the word "forbearing" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (D) Anne extends good feeling even toward people she has reason to resent, so forbearing here means patient and willing to overlook faults, that is, tolerant. (A) cheerful is already the other half of the pair, 'cheerful or forbearing,' so the second word must add a different shade, not repeat the first. (B) wary implies guardedness, which clashes with the warmth the passage describes. (C) affectionate overshoots toward active fondness; forbearance is restraint from ill will, not warmth of attachment.
Question 5. Limestone aquifers store enormous volumes of water precisely because the rock is so ______: countless tiny interconnected voids let water seep through and collect, where denser stone would simply shed it.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The colon explains the cause: 'countless tiny interconnected voids let water seep through.' Rock full of connected voids that admit water is porous. (D) saturated may seem plausible since the rock does hold water, but saturation describes the water already filling the rock, not the property of the rock that lets it in. (B) brittle concerns how easily the rock fractures, not whether fluid passes through it. (C) layered describes structural banding, which the sentence does not tie to water storage.