SAT Prep Black Book: The Most Effective SAT Strategies Ever Published (23 page)

When we look at the answer choices, the only one that works is (E), for two reasons. The first reason is that the prefix “fore-“ captures the possible relationship that ancient philosophers would have to the 19th-century: they came before it. The second reason is that the idea of “foreshadow[ing]” goes along with the idea of “help[ing]” that’s in the sentence.

(A), which is what people typically choose when they miss this question, doesn’t work because something from the ancient past can’t actively “suppress” something that ended up happening thousands of years later.

The key issue in this sentence is the phrase “on the contrary,” which tells us that the word in the second blank must be the opposite of “humanitarian.” It also tells us that the word in the first blank will have to indicate that the Professor doesn’t believe something.

Let’s start with the second blank. (A) is really the only option that gives us a workable word for the second blank. A lot of test-takers mistakenly think (B) offers a good option for that second blank, but, as always, we have to think very carefully about what that word actually means. It’s true that being “contemptible” is bad and that being a “humanitarian” is good, but the two words aren’t antonyms, and on the SAT we need antonyms in a situation like this.

Just to be sure, of course, I would check the other half of (A). “Dubious” works because the Professor doesn’t believe that the government is “humanitarian” (we know this because the Professor “insist[s]” something “on the contrary”). So we know that (A) is correct.

This is another good example of how being very careful with the meanings of words in the answer choices and in the sentence can help us zero in on correct answers.

In this sentence, the word in the second blank needs to go along with the idea of “fail[ing] to comprehend” something. That’s probably the best place to start, so let’s take a look at the answer choices.

(A) gives us a second word that most test-takers won’t know, so let’s come back to it.

(B) is a word we might be able to take apart if we don’t know it. “Vocal” indicates a relationship to the voice, “equi” indicates something to do with equality, and “un-
” is a negating prefix. So this word seems like it has to do with the idea of not having equal voices, or of not giving equal voice to multiple things, or something along those lines. But none of that seems to mean the same thing as not comprehending something, so (B) is out.

(C) can work for us if we’re familiar with the use of “penetrate” to mean “understand.” Even if we don’t know that usage, though, we might still like this word for the structure of it. Th
e combination of “-able” and “im-” means that this word is talking about the state of not being able to do something, which goes with the idea of “fail[ing]” in the original sentence.

(D) will tempt a lot of people with the word “exotic,” because it kind of seems to go along with the idea of not understanding something. But the word “exotic” doesn’t specifically mean that something can’t be understood! This is one more example of how important it is to pay careful attention to the exact meanings of words.

(E) doesn’t work, either. We’re probably familiar with the idea of a cheese grater, or of a grate in the ground, and neither of those concepts seems relevant to the idea of failing to comprehend something.

At this point, then, (A) seems possible (since we don’t know what the word in the second blank means), and (C) might seem good, at least in terms of its structure. Let’s check out the other words in those two choices.

The first word in (A) presents a problem, because “accessible” indicates that something can be accessed easily, but the sentence is talking about people failing to understand something. “Accessible” indicates that something is easy to figure out, so it doesn’t work for the first blank.

That leaves us, again, with (C). At this point we have clear ideas why (A), (B), (D), and (E) don’t work, and we have (C) with two strange words, the second of which seems to be structured in a way that reflects the idea of failing to do something. At this point, we should go ahead and mark (C) with confi
dence, and get the question right.

Note, once more, that this entire type of analysis can only be successful because we’re very careful to make sure we treat the word “exotic” correctly in choice (D). Most untrained test-takers will still consider it a possibility, but it’s really not, because being “exotic” and being impossible to comprehend aren’t the same idea.

Unlike the question we just talked about, which we could probably figure out through careful reading and reasoning, this question is very likely to be one that most test-takers end up skipping.

We can tell that the correct answer choice should mean “separat[e] the good from the bad,” but the difficulty is that at least a couple of these words will probably be unknown to us, and the ones we’re likely to know, such as (B) and (E), aren’t correct.

There’s very little
we can do in a situation like this. If we know the word “winnow,” then we can tell that (D) must be right. But most people don’t know the word “winnow.” And even if you memorize the words in these answer choices now, the chance is almost zero that they’ll come up on the SAT in a way that matters when you take the test for real.

So most test-takers should skip this question.

I wanted to mention this question to use it as a counterpoint to the one we just talked about, in which we were probably able to figure out the right answer by reading carefully and thinking carefully. It’s because of questions like this one, in which we’re probably helpless and have to skip to the next thing, that it’s so important to make sure we pick up questions that we can actually figure out.

For this sentence, we want a word that would describe someone who has come to expect something that they would never even have dreamed of once.

Most students miss this because they choose (E), but the sentence doesn’t actually say anything about anyone feeling bitter, so (E) is wrong.

The other words are often challenging for students, but we may be able to work through them. We may recognize that (A) means something like “surprised,” which doesn’t work here because it doesn’t capture the idea of something becoming common that was once uncommon—if something is common, it can’t surprise you. (B) is a word we might know from everyday conversation, or from television or movies; if we do know it, we can tell it isn’t correct, because it means something along the lines of “a little angry” or “upset.” (C) is a word most of us would have to skip. (D) is related to words like “aware” and “beware,” but neither of those has to do with things becoming common, either.

So we may be able to rule things out and realize that (C) is the only possibility
, and the correct answer. Of course, as is often the case, being able to arrive at this correct answer with confidence is only possible if we pay strict attention to the meanings of words and the rules of the test. Many people will get sucked in by the word “embittered” and never stop to realize that the sentence doesn’t talk about anyone being bitter.

This sentence is one that bears careful reading. A lot of people choose (A) incorrectly, because they realize that the ideas of “gradual[ness]” and “abruptness” are important to the question, but don’t realize that the clues aren’t “signaling” the “abruptness” itself. The clues are signaling that sleep is coming, but they’re not signaling that the coming will be abrupt. Furthermore, (A) gets the relationship between the halves of the sentence backwards.

But let’s back up a little bit. The words “actually” and “though” indicate that some contradictory ideas will be presented here. The phrase “for several minutes” near the end of the sentence indicates that the first half of the sentence will be talking about something happening in one instant (since the first half of the sentence contradicts the last half).

So let’s take a look at our remaining choices for words in the first blank. (B) doesn’t offer anything to do with the idea of the opposite of “several minutes.” (C) gives us a word related to the idea of time, but it’s still not actually relevant to the sentence—one more example of why it’s so important to read carefully and think carefully. Being “temporar[y]” has nothing to do with whether something occurs quickly or spread out over several minutes. (D) doesn’t work for the first blank, either. (E) does—in fact, it has the word “instant” right in the beginning of it.

So let’s take a look at the other half of (E) to make sure we haven’t made a mistake. “Onset” works nicely in the sentence, and restates the idea of when the “sleep actually occurs.”
So we can tell that (E) must be correct.

There’s one more thing I’d like to point out about this question. You may recall that I said I was against “pre-forming” answers to Sentence Completion questions, even though the strategy is widely recommended in many other sources. In this particular question, though, I pointed out that we were probably looking for a word that would mean something like “in
one instant,” and then the correct answer ended up including the word “instantaneously.” So it might seem like pre-forming worked out for me here. But I wasn’t actually pre-forming an answer to this question, because part of the pre-forming strategy is that you decide what the correct answer should look like beforehand and then go through the choices and try to find a word that matches your preconceived notion. I didn’t do that: I considered each answer choice on its own as I came to it, and it just happened coincidentally that the correct answer sounded similar to something I thought about when I was explaining what the question looked like to me.

It’s not uncommon for something like this to happen, especially as you develop more familiarity with the test, but it’s very important that you never actually get in the habit of
insisting
that an answer choice include a certain word beforehand. Sometimes we misread sentences, or sometimes there might be more than one part of a sentence that a blank could restate, or sometimes a blank might be restating a word in another blank in the same sentence, or who knows what. It’s important to sit back and let the sentence come to you, rather than trying to force the sentence to say something that it doesn’t actually say.

A lot of test-takers incorrectly choose “nondescript” for this question because the sentence describes people who “neither spoke nor smiled.” But, as always, it’s important to think carefully about what these words actually mean.

“Nondescript” means that something has no particular description, as we can probably tell from the word itself. But the sentence actually describes the auditors: it describes them by saying that they “neither spoke nor smiled.” So (E) doesn’t
actually work.

Let’s try the other words. (A) certainly doesn’t work. (B) is a word that often describes auditors in general, because people who choose to become auditors are typically motivated by their ethics, but the sentence itself doesn’t say anything about ethics, so (B) is wrong. (C) is related to the word “glacier,” which might not seem to be related. And (D) definitely doesn’t work, because you have to speak to “taunt” someone.

So now what?

Well, if we’re pretty sure that all 5 answers are wrong, there’s only one possible conclusion: we made a mistake somewhere. So let’s go back over our assumptions and see if we ca
n figure out what we did wrong.

(A) definitely means “friendly,” since we can recognize “ami” right at the beginning of it, which means “friend” in French and is similar to “amigo” in Spanish or “amicus” in Latin.

(B) definitely refers to ethics, which isn’t relevant here.

What about (C)? We might realize at this point that glaciers are very cold things, and that the attitude of the auditors could certainly be called cold. It’s also imaginable that a glacier might be intimidating. Could it be that when the word “glacial” is applied to a person it means that the person is cold and imposing, like a glacier?

Sure, why not? Given the circumstances, “glacial” must be correct.

This especially makes sense when we consider that the other 4 words are all clearly wrong.

Sometimes we have to go back and revisit our assumptions. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s just smart test-taking. As always, careful reading and careful thinking are much more powerful than memorizing vocabulary—the people who miss this question don’t miss it because they don’t know the word “nondescript,” or because they don’t know what a glacier is. They miss it because they aren’t paying attention to details.

This is a question that many test-takers will probably end up skipping, because high school students often lack familiarity with financial terms and this question can quickly turn into a dead-end without that familiarity. Still, we might be able to work our way through it.

In this question, we need a word for the second blank that could indicate some kind of cash award coming in the form of a loan. We may be able to recognize that (A) and (C) offer workable options for the second word. But what about the first word?

If we think carefully, we may realize that a “rebate” can only be given after something has been bought—you’ve probably heard commercials for car dealerships where new buyers are promised a rebate. The sentence doesn’t say anything about the museum buying anything, so (C) doesn’t actually work.