"Words in Context" questions will ask you to select the word that best completes a sentence of a short passage. It is helpful to have a good vocabulary, but you can answer these questions correctly even if you don't know all the words. Here's how to do it.
When there are no transitions in sentences this means that the rest of the sentence must be consistent with what proceeds it. An example given in Xello is:
You'll notice helping the landscapes immediately follows beneficial, because to help something is to be beneficial towards it.
Often you'll see definitions follow commas or colons. You can use these types of punctuation to see where a definition might be in a sentence.
Demonstrative pronouns reference the word immediately before them. Demonstrative pronouns include this, these, that, and those. Such and which can do the same thing. Here is an example from Xello:
Notice these refers to Roberte Clemente's mission to help people suffering hardships by organizing disaster relief initiatives. Humanitarian can therefore mean Robert Clemente's charitable efforts.
There are two types of transitions, they are:
Continuing idea words signal agreement and addition, they are:
Constrast transitions include:
Negation words (which signal contrast) also include not and prefixes like un. Here is an example from Xello:
You'll see here that although and not set up the second half of the sentence to contrast the first part of the sentence. By noting these words we can figure out what different parts of the sentence mean.
Consider the following passage from Xello:
Most educators agree that studying for major exams is best done _______: students who review content in smaller segments over several days are more likely to retain and comprehend the material than those who attempt to cram the night before their exams.
Xello recommends bit by bit as a fill in phrase - I thought of gradually.
Naturally, it was gradually, I rule.
Certain words suggest positivety or negativety. When reading a passage you should look for words that indicate a dominant tone. Use elimination to get rid of choices that would not be consistent with that tone. For instance, consider the following example from Xello:
Here, disdains is the correct choice - it goes along with contempt.
When there are fewer clues, ask, "what message is the passage trying to convey?" Here is a Xello example:
The correct solution here is "high priority" because it goes along with the message the passage is trying to convey.
See which one you think fits, guess if you need to!
Here is an example from Xello:
Here concede is the correct choice. (We can tell because the statistical models are so accurate that even though there are many votes to still count they know they've lost).
Now we need to complete the "Words in Context" quiz on Xello! Go for it.