Drill 29 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
Review your answers above to learn from any mistakes.
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 29) 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. Sleep researchers found the drug's benefit ______: subjects fell asleep faster for the first week, but by the second the effect had faded entirely and their sleep latency matched the placebo group's.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The benefit was real at first and then 'faded entirely' by the second week, so it lasted only briefly: it was transient. The 'first week... but by the second' structure marks a short-lived effect. (A) negligible means too small to matter, but the drug clearly worked at first, so the benefit was not trivial, only temporary. (B) detrimental means harmful, and nothing suggests the drug worsened sleep; it simply stopped helping. (D) intermittent means stopping and starting, but the benefit did not come and go; it worked steadily for a week and then ceased for good, a single fade rather than an on-off pattern.
Question 2. Critics had expected the foundation to scatter its money thinly, but its new director made the giving sharply ______, funding three causes deeply rather than a hundred at a token level.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) The director funds 'three causes deeply rather than a hundred at a token level,' gathering the money into a few places, which is what concentrated means, and the direct opposite of the 'scatter thinly' critics feared. (B) generous speaks to how much is given, but the contrast is about focus versus dispersal, not amount. (C) transparent concerns openness about the giving, a quality the sentence never raises. (D) impulsive would mean acting on whim, whereas funding a deliberate few is a considered strategy, not a rash one.
Question 3. The following text is adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1891 short story "A Scandal in Bohemia."
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
As used in the text, what does the word "effusive" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (D) Holmes is 'glad, I think, to see me' yet shows it 'with hardly a word spoken,' so his manner withholds open display: it is not demonstrative. The contrast between real gladness and few words pins the sense to outward show, not feeling. (A) sincere would mean genuine, but the passage stresses that he truly was glad, so the missing quality is expression, not honesty. (B) courteous means polite, and waving a guest to a chair is courteous; what his manner lacks is gush, not manners. (C) genial describes a warm, friendly temperament, while effusive describes how fully that warmth is shown, which is the distinction the 'hardly a word' detail draws.
Question 4. The restorer's approach was deliberately ______: rather than repaint the faded fresco, she stabilized the surviving pigment and left the losses visible, so that no later viewer could mistake her work for the original.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (B) She 'rather than repaint' chooses only to stabilize what survives and leaves the gaps showing, holding back from intervention, which is what restrained means. The whole sentence contrasts doing less with the alternative of repainting. (A) ambitious would suggest reaching further, the opposite of declining to repaint. (C) secretive runs against the point, since her aim is that no viewer 'mistake her work for the original,' an openness about what is and is not hers. (D) meticulous means careful in detail, which she may well be, but the sentence describes how little she added, not how carefully she worked.
Question 5. In game theory a strategy is ______ only if it performs at least as well as every other option available to the player, no matter what move the opponent makes; if some other strategy would do better against even one of the opponent's choices, it fails to qualify.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) A strategy that 'performs at least as well as every other option' the player has, whatever the opponent does, outranks the player's alternatives across the board, which is precisely what game theorists call a dominant strategy. The clause about another strategy doing better disqualifying it confirms that it must beat or match the player's own other options in every case. (A) cooperative concerns working with the opponent, not outranking one's own alternatives. (B) speculative means based on conjecture, but a dominant strategy is defined by guaranteed comparisons across all moves, not by guesswork. (D) equitable means fair, but the standard here is being unbeatable among one's options, not being just.