SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Words in Context (Drill 8)

Question 1. Geologists describe the volcanic system as ______ rather than extinct: its quiet stretches can last centuries before activity resumes without warning.

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

• A) eroded
• B) ancient
• C) stable
• D) dormant ✓

Explanation: (D) The contrast with 'extinct' plus 'activity resumes without warning' shows the system is merely sleeping, capable of waking. Dormant names that inactive-but-alive state. (C) stable suggests it will not change, contradicting the sudden resumption the sentence promises. (B) ancient comments on age, not on whether it can erupt again. (A) eroded describes wearing away of rock, which the sentence never raises.

Question 2. The tracking data overturned a tidy assumption: far from following one ______ route south, individual warblers wandered along paths that varied sharply from bird to bird and year to year.

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

• A) invariant ✓
• B) circuitous
• C) scenic
• D) arduous

Explanation: (A) The sentence contrasts an old 'tidy assumption' with routes that 'varied sharply from bird to bird and year to year,' so the discredited belief was that all birds took one unchanging path. Invariant means constant and unvarying, the exact thing the data refuted. (B) circuitous describes a winding route and is the tempting choice, but it speaks to a path's shape, not to whether the path stays the same across birds. (D) arduous concerns how hard the journey is, which is not what varied. (C) scenic has no bearing on the consistency the sentence measures.

Question 3. The guild's reputation rested on ______ work: a single flawed seam could see an entire bolt of cloth rejected at inspection.

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

• A) inventive
• B) exacting ✓
• C) rapid
• D) decorative

Explanation: (B) The colon shows the standard: even 'a single flawed seam' causes rejection, so the work demanded near-perfect precision. Exacting captures that strict, unforgiving requirement. (A) inventive praises originality, which the sentence does not test. (C) rapid concerns speed, but the passage rewards flawlessness, not haste. (D) decorative addresses appearance rather than the rigor the inspection enforced.

Question 4. The alloy's appeal is that it is ______: it can be drawn into fine wire without cracking, where a more brittle metal would simply snap.

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

• A) lustrous
• B) dense
• C) ductile ✓
• D) resilient

Explanation: (C) The colon defines the trait exactly: the metal 'can be drawn into fine wire without cracking,' the textbook description of ductility. Ductile is the precise term for a material that deforms into wire under tension. (D) resilient is the strong distractor, but it means recovering shape after a force is removed, whereas drawing into wire is permanent deformation. (A) lustrous describes shine, not behavior under stress. (B) dense concerns how much mass is packed into a volume, which the sentence does not address.

Question 5. The following text is adapted from Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.

I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder; he had closed with a desperate thing. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering.

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

• A) conscious ✓
• B) practical
• C) reasonable
• D) considerable

Explanation: (A) The bleeding wound makes the narrator register the pain, so the older sense of 'sensible of' here means conscious or aware of something felt. (B) practical and (C) reasonable both import the modern sense of sound judgment, but the sentence is about a sensation registering, not about wise behavior. (D) considerable would describe the amount of suffering, yet the construction 'sensible of' points to perceiving the pain rather than measuring it.