SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 26)

Question 1. Food chemists distinguish shelf-stable goods from ______ ones: the latter, lacking preservatives or a sealed environment, begin to spoil within days and must be refrigerated or eaten quickly.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

• A) durable
• B) luminous
• C) perishable ✓
• D) flammable

Explanation: (C) The colon defines the category: goods that 'begin to spoil within days.' That is the meaning of perishable. (A) durable is the contrast term already named by 'shelf-stable,' so the blank, set against it, must mean the opposite. (D) flammable concerns catching fire, unrelated to spoiling. (B) luminous describes giving off light, with no bearing on storage.

Question 2. The following text is adapted from George Eliot's 1860 novel The Mill on the Floss.

She sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by the thought that she would talk everything over with her sister to-morrow; for it seemed impossible that past events should be so obstinate as to remain unmodified when they were complained against.

As used in the text, what does the word "obstinate" most nearly mean?

• A) conspicuous
• B) unyielding ✓
• C) familiar
• D) deliberate

Explanation: (B) Mrs Tulliver cannot believe that past events would 'remain unmodified' no matter how she protested, so the events are imagined as stubbornly fixed, that is, unyielding. (D) deliberate may seem plausible since 'obstinate' often describes a willful person, but events are not agents and cannot intend anything; the sentence treats them as simply refusing to change. (A) conspicuous means easily noticed, which the passage never suggests. (C) familiar means well known, unrelated to whether the events can be altered.

Question 3. Because so few specimens survive from that interval, claims about when the lineage first appeared remain ______: each new fossil can push the earliest known date back by millions of years and overturn the prevailing estimate.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

• A) unsettled ✓
• B) definitive
• C) customary
• D) verifiable

Explanation: (A) The colon shows the dates keep moving as new fossils appear and 'overturn the prevailing estimate,' so the claims are not yet fixed, that is, unsettled. (B) definitive is the inversion: a date that any new fossil can overturn is precisely not final. (D) verifiable sounds plausible near science, but the sentence stresses uncertainty, not the ability to confirm. (C) customary means usual or habitual, which does not describe the status of a disputed date.

Question 4. The restoration team rejected the gilded scheme proposed by the previous century and returned the chapel to its original ______ interior: bare stone, undecorated walls, and not a single ornament.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

• A) lavish
• B) frugal
• C) sturdy
• D) plain ✓

Explanation: (D) The colon lists 'bare stone, undecorated walls, and not a single ornament,' which describes a plain interior. (A) lavish is the opposite, naming the rejected gilded scheme. (B) frugal concerns thrift with money or resources, not the visual bareness of a room. (C) sturdy speaks to structural strength, which the sentence does not address.

Question 5. Aftershock sequences rarely decline on a smooth schedule; the intervals between tremors are often ______, with long quiet stretches broken without warning by sudden clusters.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?

• A) sluggish
• B) erratic ✓
• C) steady
• D) forceful

Explanation: (B) 'Long quiet stretches broken without warning by sudden clusters' describes intervals with no regular pattern, that is, erratic. (C) steady is the inversion, explicitly denied by 'rarely decline on a smooth schedule.' (A) sluggish describes slowness, but the issue is irregularity, not pace. (D) forceful describes the strength of a tremor, not the spacing between tremors, which is what the blank modifies.