Sentence Completions

Link of the day

Memorial Day is a day to remember those who have died in the service of our nation. It was officially proclaimed on May 5th, 1868 (and observed on May 30th of that year). Since then the observation of Memorial Day has been moved to the last Monday in May, although there have been attempts to change Memorial Day back to May 30th. In December of 2000, the National Moment of Rememberance resolution was passed (which asks for all Americans to pause at 3:00 PM and "to voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect".) You can read more about Memorial Day here.

5/28 Sentence Completions

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

Remember that the answer choices on most SAT questions are there to confuse you. Out of the five listed, four of them are wrong! Use the Knowsys Method: look at the sentence, make a prediction without reading the answer choices, and then compare the answer choices to your prediction to find the one that matches most closely.

The “double feature,” which featured two films for the price of one, became popular in the 1930s as a scheme to ------- former moviegoers who had begun to stay home since the ------- of the Depression at the beginning of the decade.

First, look at the blanks and select the one that will be easier to fill in. In this case the first blank is easier. We can predict that the word we are looking for is a positive word. Most likely the "double feature" was introduced to interest or attract the moviegoers. We now look at the answer choices and eliminate as many as we can based on our prediction of the first blank

(A) lure . . advent

(B) discourage . . end

(C) dissuade . . dawn

(D) perplex . .  onset

(E) instigate . . devastation

In this case, since only choice (A) matches our prediction of the first blank. We do not even have to try to predict the second blank (although it is a good idea to read the sentence and verify that word for the second blank fits the sentence). 

The correct answer is choice (A).

Words tested in this SC:
lure: to attract by temptation; to entice
advent: approach; arrival
discourage: to persuade someone not to do something
end: final point
dissuade: to convince someone not to try or do something
dawn: the beginning, when something begins to appear or be realized
perplex: to cause someone to feel baffled or puzzled
onset: the initial phase
instigate: to goad or urge forward
devastation: destruction

On sat.collegeboard.org, 71% of responses were correct.

Need to build your SAT Vocab?  Visit www.myknowsys.com to check out the Knowsys Vocabulary Builder Program.