SAT Critical-Reading - One Blank Questions
One blank sentence completion questions include a sentence with one blank, and you need to fill in the missing word for that one blank. There are 5 steps you should take in answering one blank sentence completion questions: - Cover up the answer choices. This is your first step, because you don't want to make up your mind about the correct answer until you have really evaluated the meaning of the sentence and thought about it carefully.
- Read the sentence and look for clues and direction triggers.
- Clues are words that help you to determine the meaning of the blank
- Direction triggers are words or punctuation that help you to determine the direction of the sentence
- Same direction triggers include words like "and," "also," "therefore," or "so." They also include punctuation like semicolons (;) or colons (:)
- Different direction triggers include words like "but," "however," "despite," or "although"
- Change degree triggers include words like "____, even _____" and suggest that you are looking for a different degree of a word. For example, a sentence might read small, even ___ and the word "even" in the context of the sentence lets us know that we are looking for a word that means even smaller than small.
- Predict the word that is going to go in the blank, using clues and triggers. It is best if you can predict an exact word. If you can't think of an exact word, you can think of a phrase that describes the word you want for the blank. As a last resort, if you can't think of a word or a phrase, you can predict a word charge and predict whether you think the word in the blank is positive, negative or neutral.
- Look at the answer choices and find a word that matches your prediction
- Read the original sentence back, using the word you have chosen to make sure it makes sense in the context of the sentence.
By predicting the blank first, you will have a better chance of quickly choosing the correct answer, since you will know exactly what you are looking for.
|
|
