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The SAT Sentence Completions: Basic Principles

Page 1

The SAT Sentence Completions: Basic PrinciplesI'll Say It Again: Start Memorizing Words Today
Each of the three SAT Reading Test sections begins with sentence completion questions: 5, 6, and 8, respectively, making a total of 19 sentence completions on the test. Each group of sentence completions is arranged from easy to medium to difficult: the first half of the questions are easy to medium, and the second half are hard.

Although sentence completions require some comprehension, they are primarily a test of your vocabulary. You won't have much trouble with the easy ones, but the last few sentence completions contain very hard words. Indeed, on the last couple of completions you may not even recognize some of the words in the sentences themselves as well as the choices.

In this article I'll show you a simple three-step method for analyzing sentence completions. As you'll learn, you can often solve the hardest sentence completions even without knowing what the answer means.

What Is a Sentence Completion?
Each question consists of a sentence from which a word has been omitted and replaced by a blank (indicated by a dashed line). Half the questions replace two words with blanks. Your job is to find the word or set of words that completes the main idea of each sentence—what the sentence is "getting at."

Each sentence below has one or two blanks. Each blank indicates that something has been omitted from the sentence. Choose the word or set of words that best completes the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Example:

Trends are difficult to spot until they are well established because they usually begin as minor, seemingly ------- events.

1. momentous
2. popular
3. insignificant
4. current
5. recent

(A) (B) (C) (D) (E)

Here are the directions. These directions will not change on the actual test, so do not waste time reading them in the exam room.

Solving Sentence Completions in Three (or Four) Simple Steps
Although there are innumerable types of sentences in the English language, sentence completions can be solved applying a simple, three-step method:

Step 1: Find the main idea of the sentence.

Step 2: Anticipate what word or type of word will fit in the blank or blanks.

Step 3: Apply process of elimination to the choices until you find the answer.

This approach works for any sentence completion, though if you don't know one or more words in the sentence or the choices, you may not be able to eliminate enough choices to find the answer in the third step. If that happens, a fourth step is necessary:

Step 4: If you haven't found the answer by Step 3, guess.

Again, in this article we'll focus largely on the first three steps.

Let's begin with the first step.

Page 2 Step 1: Look for Clues to Find the "Main Idea" of the Sentence
Consider the following incomplete sentence completion:

Peter is -------.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

This example is incomplete because it has no main idea; any adjective could fit here. Peter is popular. Peter is hyperactive. Peter is paranoid. (Incidentally, notice that all the choices are grammatically consistent. Here the choices are all adjectives; on another question they might be all verbs.)

You will never see such a question on the SAT because it is too simple. You are not given enough information to choose a "best" answer. Peter could be popular, hyperactive, tall, gullible, and paranoid!

On the SAT, each sentence will give you clues pointing to its main idea. Consider now the following variations of our original sentence:

Variation 1:

Peter is -------, so he plays center for his high school basketball team.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

Discussion: The clue here is the phrase following the blank. The only choice that fits now is C.

Variation 2:

Peter is -------, so he continually looks over his shoulder for hidden dangers.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

Discussion: The only choice that fits now is E. Even if you weren't familiar with the answer, you could use process of elimination to rule out the other choices.

Variation 3:

Peter is -------, so on weekends he has more party invitations than he can handle.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

Discussion: The only choice that fits now is A.

Variation 4:

Peter is -------, so his friends are always playing practical jokes on him.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

Discussion: The only choice that fits now is D. Again, if you weren't familiar with the answer, process of elimination would have allowed you to deduce the answer by eliminating the other choices.

Variation 5:

Peter is -------, so he finds it nearly impossible to sit still through long, tedious lectures.

1. popular
2. hyperactive
3. tall
4. gullible
5. paranoid

Discussion: The only choice that fits now is B.

Of course, SAT sentence completions will get a lot harder than that, but the basic principle is the same. Don't forget that half the questions include two blanks, but our overall method does not change significantly, so for now let's just nail down our basic approach.

Chunking the Sentence into Phrases
The sentences you'll have to answer on the test are more difficult than the ones above because they're longer. The average sentence on the SAT contains more than 20 words. With sentences that long, you'll have to dig to uncover the clues.

The way not to answer long questions is to plug in each choice and read the sentence as a whole over and over until you find the answer. This process is too confusing and time-consuming. Indeed, reading a lengthy sentence under time pressure just once is difficult enough to take in. As we discussed in The SAT: How Your Brain Can Get You in Trouble, your brain can handle only so much information in short-term memory before it crashes, just like a computer. Reading a lengthy sentence for clues can overload your short-term memory, making it very difficult to think clearly, if at all.

The solution is to work with chunks of a sentence at a time, eliminating as many choices as you can, and then working with another chunk of the sentence. By working in this way you'll find that you can often determine which word or type of word fits without reading the entire sentence.

Page 3 Focus on the Neighboring Words near the Blank
As a first step—before you read the sentence as a whole—see how far you can get by using the words immediately before and after the blank, especially any phrases that include the blank.

Let's consider the following sentence to see how this chunk-eliminate-chunk-eliminate process works.

Though he invariably took his time to consider carefully any new potential venture, once he made up his mind to invest the successful businessman moved quickly and ------- to exploit the opportunity.

1. patiently
2. recklessly
3. occasionally
4. decisively
5. publicly

The sentence is over 30 words long, quite a mouthful. So let's take the sentence in small bites at a time. We skip all the words at the beginning of the sentence and jump right to the phrase that includes the blank: "quickly and -------." The answer must be a word that is consistent with the idea of moving quickly.

Just that little bit of information allows us to eliminate choices A, C, and E. Now all we have to do is search for another clue to decide between the remaining choices B and D. The first few words of the sentence tell us that the businessman took his time and was careful, so we eliminate B and select the answer, choice D.

With shorter, easier sentences, you may not need to chop the sentence down like that. Read the longer sentences whole, however, only as a last resort.

The Two Types of Sentence Completion Clues: Direction Clues and Concept Clues
To find the main idea of a sentence, the two types of clues you can use are direction clues and concept clues. Direction clues are grammatical and relatively easy to spot and apply. If a sentence offers a direction clue—not all sentences do—this clue is often sufficient to select the answer.

A concept clue, as the name suggests, involves two or more related or contrasting concepts within a sentence. Concept clues are harder to spot than direction clues, but often come in handy on the more difficult questions.

A sentence will offer either a direction clue or a concept clue or both, so use whichever one presents itself. Let's take a closer look at each type.

Looking for Direction Clues
If we view the main idea of a sentence as having a flow or a direction, that direction can do one of three things:

• continue
• reverse
• go to extremes

By far the most common instances on the SAT are sentences whose direction continues. Unless you have grammatical or other clues indicating otherwise, you should assume that the direction continues.

On the medium to difficult questions, direction reversals become more common. On the most difficult questions, you'll occasionally encounter a sentence whose direction goes to extremes, but the last variation is far less common than the other variations.

Here's an example of each possible direction a sentence can take. We'll look at the same basic sentence with different direction clues.

The direction continues:

Faced with a seasoned champion as an opponent, the inexperienced fencer was frightened as well as ------- before his upcoming match.

Discussion: The direction clue here is the phrase "as well as." A word like "pessimistic" would fit here since "frightened" and "pessimistic" indicate negative and related states of mind. A silly response would be a word like "rich." The inexperienced fencer could be both frightened and rich, but it makes no sense to speak of these concepts together in the same sentence (especially in light of the opening phrase here). Note that when the direction of a sentence continues, the missing word should complement the clue or clues, though it may not be an exact synonym. We would not say, for example, that the inexperienced fencer was "frightened as well as scared."

The direction reverses:

Faced with a seasoned champion as an opponent, the inexperienced fencer was frightened yet ------- before his upcoming match.

Discussion: The direction clue here is the word "yet." A word like "determined" would fit here since it qualifies the word "frightened" without absolutely contradicting it. Note that when the direction of a sentence reverses, the missing word should complement the clue or clues without necessarily being an exact antonym. We would not say that the inexperienced fencer was "frightened yet brave." When the direction of a sentence reverses, a contrasting or qualifying idea is introduced, but it need not be an exact opposite.

The direction goes to extremes:

Faced with a seasoned champion as an opponent, the inexperienced fencer was frightened if not ------- before his upcoming match.

Discussion: The direction clue here is the phrase "if not." A word like "panicked" or "terrified" would fit here. This last variation of sentence direction is rare, and is found only in the final two or three (most difficult) sentence completions.

Before giving you a list of the different types of expressions that offer direction clues, the following brief drill will give you practice.

Page 4 Direction Clues Drill
For each of the following sentences, decide first which type of direction is indicated by the italicized phrases and then choose a word that would fit the blank. On the actual test the clues will not be italicized for your convenience, of course, but this drill is designed to sharpen your awareness of the different types of direction clue expressions.

It's possible that many words can fit in the blank, so you have some flexibility. If you'd like, you can select more than one word for an answer.

Sentence Completion Direction Possible Answer 1. The coach praised and ------- her athletes.     2. The proposed solution was expensive rather than -------.     3. The prototype exhibited excellent design as well as -------.     4. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with either side, the mediator remained
------- during the opening presentations.     5. The audience was quiet if not ------- throughout the opera.     6. The author's anecdote is as enjoyable as it is -------.    

You'll find the answers to this drill at the end of this article. Please try your hand at these sentences before reading on.

Examples of Direction Clues
The following table provides you with a comprehensive list of the variety of direction clues you can expect. The ellipses (. . .) indicate the words before and after each expression. We have already reviewed many of these expressions in the previous drill.

I've arranged these expressions in terms of your likely familiarity with them. Some of the phrases toward the end of each list may be unfamiliar to you. If so, you should practice using any such expression by writing a practice sentence.

As always, you don't have to memorize anything here. Just review the table so that you are familiar with the different types of direction clues.

Direction Continues
(most common) Direction Reverses Direction Goes to Extremes
(least common)

---

. . . and . . . . . . but . . . . . . became . . . . . . also . . . . . . not . . . . . . and eventually . . . . . . as well as . . . . . . instead of . . . . . . and even . . . as . . . as it is . . . . . . unlike . . . . . . almost . . . not only . . . but also . . . . . . although . . . . . . if not . . .   . . . except for . . .     . . . however . . .     . . . rather than . . .     this . . . is no . . .     . . . on the contrary . . .     . . . nonetheless . . .     . . . surprisingly . . .     . . . was previously . . .     . . . paradoxically . . .     this hitherto . . . is now . . .     . . . save for . . .     . . . notwithstanding . . .     for all its . . . it was still . . .  

Page 5 The Role of the Colon and Semicolon Some sentence completions will contain a colon ( : ) or semicolon (; ). In almost every instance, the sentence direction continues after the colon or semicolon. In fact, the second half of the sentence following the colon or semicolon usually does nothing more than paraphrase the first half.

Here's an example:

Elliot's analysis of the manuscript is disappointingly -------; Elliot seems content to remain on the surface of the intricate text.

1. superficial
2. overdue
3. derivative
4. critical
5. scholarly

The semicolon tells us that the second half of the sentence merely echoes the first half. Since the second half tells us that Elliot remained on the surface of the text, the first half of the sentence must be saying the same thing. The only choice that fits here is A. Choices B and C are negative, as required by the word disappointingly, but are not consistent with the second half of the sentence.

Be Alert for Concept Clues
Grammatical clues (such as the words and phrases we just discussed) and punctuation clues are often enough to solve the sentence completion, but sometimes you will need to use concept clues. A concept clue is an idea that is repeated or contrasted within a sentence.

We find a simple example of this technique in the instructions. Here is the illustrative sentence:

Trends are difficult to spot until they are well established because they usually begin as minor, seemingly ------- events.

1. momentous
2. popular
3. insignificant
4. current
5. recent

Notice the repetition of the ideas "difficult to spot" and "minor." This concept clue points us to the answer, "insignificant."

Sometimes an idea will be contrasted with another, and such contrasts are also important concept clues. On the two-blank sentence completions, you will often find two concept clues, but the principle we have discussed is the same.

Use Common Sense
Simply using what you know about people and the world often helps you solve sentence completions. Consider the following example:

The young poet, apparently eager to ------- academic commentators who criticized his earlier work for pandering to plebian sensibilities, began to include more erudite references and classical allusions in his poems.

1. appease
2. embody
3. describe
4. antagonize
5. confirm

This sentence is packed with several difficult to very difficult words, so let's start by chunking the sentence and applying some common sense.

What would a young poet be eager to do regarding academic commentators of his work? Unless he were self-destructive, a young poet would be eager to please or impress commentators of his work, especially those who had criticized his work earlier. The answer to this question is choice A. Even if you weren't familiar with this word, you could have eliminated the other choices using process of elimination. Once again, notice how we can sometimes—though not always—get away with ignoring difficult words in a sentence completion.

You've learned an astonishing amount about the world and the people in it use it. As you'll see when we get to the reading passages, common sense often rescues us on those questions, too.

Don't Be Too Clever on the Sentence Completions
Sentence completions are straightforward, as are the reading questions. Unlike the kind of reading you are required to do in your school literature classes, the sentences contain no subtleties or surprises.

I say this because if I were giving a lecture right now on sentence completions to you and a dozen classmates, it's about this point that some braniac would raise his hand and challenge me with a comment like, "Well, maybe a young poet would be angry at the critics of his previous work, and so maybe he'd actually be trying to antagonize them."

Yeah, right. Heck, why stop there? Maybe the poet hates poetry and is trying to sabotage his own career. No way. Whenever a sentence includes something contrary to common sense, the sentence will highlight this fact by including a word like "surprisingly" or in some other way letting us know that something unusual is going on.

Keep things simple. If you start to overanalyze a sentence or choice, you can quickly find yourself in deep water. Being clever may win points with your English teacher, but this isn't school. On the SAT, being too clever is likely to cost you time as well as points. Let's move on to step two.

Page 6 Step 2: Fill in the Blank (or Blanks) Before Looking at the Choices
Once you've determined the direction of a sentence, you should be able to make a good guess about a word that would complete the main idea. Some students actually quickly write a word in the blank, though this is not necessary.

The point of coming up with the word on your own, before you glance at the choices, is not to let the choices confuse your analysis. Now when you look at the choices you're like a heat-seeking missile: you have a definite target in mind.

If You Can't Come Up with a Specific Word for the Blank, Use the Positive-Negative Method
Sometimes the clues don't immediately suggest a specific word. Since you don't have a lot of time during the test to ponder over the sentence, your quick fall back position is to use the positive-negative method. Even when you can't determine a precise word that would fill the blank, you can usually figure out whether the missing word is positive or negative.

Consider the following example and decide whether a positive or negative word would fit. Be careful!

The point of most advertising of new products, after all, is to make us on some level feel ------- our current lives so that we feel compelled to purchase the products being peddled.

1. aware of
2. discontent with
3. consumed with
4. hopeful about
5. harmonious with

While advertising is supposed to make us want to buy a particular product or service, it accomplishes this by making us feel discontented with our current situation. (The concept clue in the repeated theme of "new" and "current" helped here.)

Be careful using the positive-negative method. Whether the missing word is positive or negative often depends on the particular context. Consider the following example:

Unfortunately, in preliminary trials the experimental vaccination actually ------- the spread of the harmful bacteria.

1. curbed
2. altered
3. defined
4. cured
5. promoted

Clearly the main idea of the sentence is negative, but since we're talking about harmful bacteria, the blank would actually be a positive word like "accelerated." The answer is choice E, "promoted," a positive word.

If You Can't Even Decide Whether the Missing Word Should Be Positive or Negative
If you're really stymied, glance at the choices for inspiration. Sometimes a choice triggers an association that will reveal the main idea you're looking for.

Here's another point worth making. Whenever a sentence discusses a woman or a member of a minority group—and especially his or her achievements—the main idea is invariably positive. The test writers go out of their way not to offend anyone, so the tone of sentence completions or reading passages that discuss members of a minority is always upbeat and laudatory.

(This political correctness extends—I kid you not—to the SAT's math problems. If there's an SAT word problem involving boys and girls, I promise you that a girl or girls will win the race or have the highest grade point average or whatever. It never fails.)

Step 3:Attack the Choices Using Process of Elimination
You've already done the hard work, now all you have to do is go through the choices, matching them against the word you anticipated or against the positive-negative connotation you determined.

Don't, however, expect an exact match for the word you anticipated in the previous step, although this often happens. Instead you now have a "key" that allows you to assess each choice quickly using process of elimination. If a particular choice is not consistent with the word you devised, that choice can safely be eliminated—so long as you're sure of the choice's definition, or at least sure whether the choice is positive or negative.

Let's say on a question that the word you came up with is "regular," or something close in meaning. At the very least you've determined that the word should be positive. Consider the following five choices:

1. imprecise
2. fortunate
3. likely
4. unbalanced
5. expected

Let's work with the connotation first—always safer than going out on a limb looking for a precise word. We're looking for a positive word, so we can eliminate any negative choices. Choices A and D are out. Now we match each of the remaining choices against our target word—"regular"—and eliminate any that are inconsistent. The only choice consistent with regular is choice E, "expected." Of course, if none of the choices comes close to the word you were expecting, you should reevaluate the sentence.

Page 7 Again, Don't Be Too Clever
Let's say that you're looking for a negative word on a sentence and you have the following choices to work with:

1. honest
2. sufficient
3. complex
4. impressive
5. necessary

Clearly the only negative choice here is C; the other choices are positive-to-neutral. But there's always some smarty pants at this point who says, "Whoa, wait a second. How do we know that the word 'honest' is always positive? I can think of situations in which a person can be too honest. And for that matter, necessary could be negative, too."

Give me a break. If you get caught in the trap of finding justifications for various choices, you'll never be able to reach a decision. Your goal is to eliminate choices, not justify them.

Two-Blank Completions Give You More to Work With
So far we've discussed only one-blank sentence completions, but everything I've said so far applies equally to the two-blank versions. Two-blank sentence completions take a bit more time to analyze than one-blank questions, so it may appear that they re more difficult. Remember, however, that we have twice as much information per choice during the process of elimination stage. If you can eliminate either word of a pair, the entire choice is out.

Work with one blank at a time. Focus on one of the two blanks—whichever you have more information about and eliminate as many choices as you can. Then, apply process of elimination to the other blank of the remaining choices.

You might determine, say, that the first blank of a sentence is positive and the second blank negative. Glance at the choices and select the blank that has easier words to work with—which may be the second. Eliminate every choice that does not have a negative second word. If you're lucky you may already have found the answer! If not, simply review the remaining choices and eliminate every one that does not have a positive word in the first position.

On Two-Blank Questions, You Can Also Focus on the Relationship Between the Blanks
Although two-blank questions seem more difficult than those with one blank, remember that we now have twice as much information to work with in selecting or eliminating each choice. On a two-blank question if you can't even decide whether the blanks are positive or negative, you can often focus on the relationship between them.

Consider the following sentence:

Like most -------, Tom was primarily interested in ------- people.

1. leaders . . enslaving
2. frauds . . swindling
3. scientists . . describing
4. teachers . . intimidating
5. criminals . . evading

It's impossible to tell whether the blanks are positive or negative, but it is absolutely clear that the two blanks are both positive or both negative. Choice D we can quickly eliminate since only one of the words is negative. The two blanks in choices A, C, and E are somewhat consistent, but only by stretching things. The only choice that works is B.

On more difficult questions, the relationship is sometimes more difficult to establish. Consider the following sentence:

The table was ------- as well as large, so moving it up the narrow staircase required strength as well as -------.

The two "as well as" phrases establish what English teachers call parallelism. We can make this structure more evident by setting up the phrases as follows:

------- as well as large strength as well as -------

Here the first blank refers to the word "strength," while the second refers to the word "large." A possible answer would be "heavy" for the first blank and "agility" for the second.

But What Happens If You Don't Know All the Words?
So far you've learned a basic procedure for analyzing any sentence completion. Things get tougher when you don't know one or more of the words, but in the next chapter you'll learn additional techniques for handling these situations. As I've said before and I'll remind you again, the more words you know, the easier you'll find the SAT Reading Test.

Page 8 Answers to the Direction Clues Drill
Keep in mind that many possible words might satisfy a particular blank. So long as you've found an appropriate type of word for these sentence completions, you're fine. Remember that on the SAT you're not looking among the choices for an exact match with the word you've anticipated. The important thing in this drill is whether you recognized the correct direction indicated by the clue phrase.
1. The coach praised and ------- her athletes.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence continues, so a word like "encouraged" or "supported" or "congratulated" would work here. The answer would have to be a positive word consistent with the word "praised."

2. The proposed solution was expensive rather than -------.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence reverses, so a word like "practical" or "affordable" would work here. The answer would have to be a positive word contrasting with the word "expensive."

3. The prototype exhibited excellent design as well as -------.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence continues, so a word like "construction" would work here.

4. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with either side, the mediator remained ------- during the opening presentations.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence reverses, so a word like "neutral" or "objective" would work here.

5. The audience was quiet if not ------- throughout the opera.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence goes to extremes, so a word like "silent" would work here. The expression "if not" is a difficult direction clue, so you may not have been familiar with it.

6. The author's anecdote is as enjoyable as it is -------.
Discussion: The direction of this sentence continues, so a word like "instructive" would work here. The answer would have to be a positive word consistent with the word "enjoyable."