Drill 30 · Reading & Writing · Hard Words in Context
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 30) 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. The translator faced a famously ______ passage, one whose puns work only in the original and collapse the moment they are carried word for word into another language.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (A) Puns that 'work only in the original and collapse' when carried into another language describe text that cannot be rendered across languages: untranslatable. The sentence defines the difficulty as loss in transfer, not in meaning. (B) opaque would mean hard to see through or understand, but the passage is not unclear; it reads plainly and only loses its puns when moved into another language. (C) archaic means old-fashioned in language, which says nothing about why the puns fail to cross over. (D) florid means showily decorated, a matter of style rather than the cross-language failure the sentence names.
Question 2. The following text is adapted from Thomas Hardy's 1872 novel Under the Greenwood Tree.
To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings.
As used in the text, what does the word "distinctly" most nearly mean?
Explanation: (D) Hardy says the firs 'sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock,' meaning their sound can be made out as plainly as their motion can be seen, so distinctly here means perceptibly, clearly to the senses. The whole passage insists each tree has 'a voice as well as a feature,' a sound one can register. (A) faintly inverts the point, since the sound is as plain as the rocking, not weak. (B) melodiously imports a judgment of musical beauty the passage does not make; the firs 'sob and moan.' (C) unpredictably concerns irregularity, but Hardy is describing how clearly the sound is heard, not whether it varies.
Question 3. Modern foresters no longer treat every blaze as a disaster to be ______ at once; controlled low-intensity fire, they have learned, clears underbrush and lets fire-adapted seeds germinate.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (B) The old view treated fire 'as a disaster' to be put out immediately, which is what suppressed means, and the sentence contrasts that with letting controlled fire do useful work. (A) monitored means watched, a far milder response than stamping out a perceived disaster. (C) investigated means examined, which addresses a fire's cause rather than ending the fire itself. (D) encouraged inverts the sense, since the old approach refused to allow fire at all; deliberately encouraging it is the newer practice the sentence presents as the lesson, not the disaster response.
Question 4. Skeptics had called the chronometer's accuracy ______, a fluke of one calm crossing; but it held its rate through three more voyages in heavy weather, ruling out luck.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (C) The skeptics dismissed the accuracy as 'a fluke of one calm crossing,' that is, a matter of luck rather than design, which is what fortuitous means. The later voyages 'ruling out luck' confirm that luck was exactly the charge. (A) exceptional means unusually good, but the skeptics were not praising the clock; they were explaining its success away. (B) trivial means of little importance, yet the accuracy was real and notable, only attributed to chance. (D) systematic means the result of method, which is the very thing the skeptics denied and the later voyages went on to prove, so it describes the rebuttal, not the doubt the blank carries.
Question 5. The philosopher's prose is bracingly ______: she states each claim in one short sentence, defines her terms once, and never pads an argument to seem more profound.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Explanation: (D) Stating claims in 'one short sentence' and refusing to 'pad an argument' describe writing that uses no more than it needs, which is what economical means here. The listed habits all point to thrift of words. (A) diffuse means spread out and wordy, the opposite of claims packed into one short sentence each. (B) ornate means elaborately decorated, the opposite of prose that never pads. (C) evasive means dodging the point, whereas defining terms and stating claims directly is the reverse of evasion.