Sentence Completions

Link of the Day

Gwendolyn Brooks was a highly accomplished poet and the first black author to win a Pulitzer Prize. She was born in Topeka Kansas, but her family moved to Chicago while she was still young. Brooks was only 13 years old when she published her first poem, "Eventide." In the 1950s she published her first and only book "Maud Martha" which described a black woman's life through short vignettes. You can learn more about Gwendolyn Brooks here. She would make a great historical "Excellent Example" for your essay.

7/6 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. 

Whenever you have a two-blank sentence completion, always remember to predict the easier blank first, then eliminate as many answer choices as you can with just that prediction. If there is more than one answer choice left, make a prediction for the other blank and eliminate any of the remaining answers that don't match your prediction.

Gwendolyn Brooks' character Maud Martha appears ________ but feels great rage: She ________ her emotions with a mask of compliance.


When you work on this sentence completion, it is absolutely essential that you read the question carefully. The easiest blank to predict is the first one. However, if you don't read carefully and notice the keyword "but," you will make a mistake. "Maud Martha appears _________ but feels great rage." Because of the "but," you know that the character doesn't look like she is enraged. You can predict that the character"appears calm but feels great rage." Now, take a look at the answer choices and eliminate as many as you can.

(A) responsive . .  echoes
(B) nonchalant . . exposes
(C) docile . . camouflages
(D) uncontrolled . . belies
(E) invincible . . catapults

Only (B) and (C) match your prediction (notice that they are synonyms). (D) is the opposite of your prediction. (A) and (E) are nothing like your prediction. Since you still have two choices left, you need to make a prediction for the second blank. Look at the second part of the sentence. "She ________ her emotions with a mask of compliance." A mask is used to hide things. That means you can predict that "She hides her emotions . . .." Now you can eliminate (B) so you are only left with (C).

The correct Answer Choice is (C).

Words tested in this SC:
responsive: answering, replying
echoes: copies, repeats back precisely what another has just said
nonchalant: casually calm and relaxed
expose: to uncover, make visible, introduce to 
docile: yielding to control or supervision, ready to accept instruction
camouflages:  disguises or hides
uncontrolled: not regulated, uncurbed
belies: lies about, slanders
invincible: someone or something that cannot be destroyed or defeated
catapults: to fire a missile from a catapult, to increase the status of something rapidly

On sat.collegeboard.org 77% of the responses were correct.

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