Sentence Completions

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Henry David Thoreau is famous for his reclusive nature. For more than two years, he lived in complete solitude by now-famous Walden Pond in Massachusetts. During that time, he reflected on the nature of humanity, of the world, and of nature itself. His famous book Walden documents his musing during this hermitage. 

5/1 Sentence Completions

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted into the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Remember to read the sentence carefully before looking at the answer choices.  Use the clues in the sentence to predict an answer, then look for a synonym of your prediction among the answer choices.

Because she has a great need for ------, she loathes the public appearances demanded of her as a leading literary figure.

The first clue in this sentence is the word "Because."  "Because" is a subordinating conjunction (it introduces a clause and makes it dependent on another clause in the sentence), and it indicates a cause-and-effect relationship between two things.  In this sentence, the cause is the author's need, and the effect is that she loathes public appearances.  The second clue is the word "loathes."  If you don't know what loathing is, this sentence is difficult to predict.  However, if you know that it means "to hate, detest, or revile," you can deduce that the author prefers isolation to crowds. Isolation or solitude could work as your prediction. Now check each answer choice by asking, "Does [choice] mean solitude?"



A) luxury

B) privacy

C) reward

D) devotion

E) distraction

Luxury and reward both have to do with money, not solitude, so eliminate A and C. Devotion means being dedicated to a person or cause, so eliminate D. A distraction is something that makes it difficult to focus, which also has nothing to do with isolation or solitude. Eliminate E. The answer is B.

Words tested in this SC:
Luxury: extremely wealthy and comfortable surroundings
Privacy: the state of not being seen by others
Reward: something of value given in return for an act
Devotion: feelings of strong or fervent affection; dedication
Distraction: something that diverts the attention


On sat.collegeboard.org, 74% of responses were correct.

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