SAT Writing : Increasing the Contextual Relevance of a Single Word

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT Writing

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Example Questions

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Example Question #164 : Rewriting A Single Word

1 Since its inception in the 19th century, photography has played various and complex roles. 2 Crude pinhole cameras first appeared in antiquity. 3 Silver salts, the colloidon process, and daguerreotypes were all developed during the 1800s as photography took form and it’s technology evolved.

4 By the 1900s, photography was often considered an equal of, or at least analgesic to, painting and other visual art forms. 5 In much the same way that portrait painters used to memorialize their subjects in gilded frames and oil paints, photography now serves to document people’s daily lives, experiences, and possessions, such as what someone has eaten for dinner or seen on a road trip. 6 For example, on social media sites.

7 Photography can capture such minuet, intimate details that some aboriginal peoples famously believed cameras could steal the subject’s soul. 8 Perhaps this is why paparazzi are so victimized by others in their profession: Their intrusiveness may reveal more about the subject than he or she would like. 9 Celebrity photographers including Annie Liebovitz, who often favors a black and white composition, who also works for a famous magazine, attempt to portray the essence of famous people through a single photographic portrait. 10 Photography serves to document war atrocities, famine, or other human rights issues. 11 For example, Nick Ut’s famous picture of Vietnamese children being burned by napalm helped turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War, while Dorothea Lange’s photographs of migrant workers during the Great Depression influenced public policy regarding the treatment of these workers. 12 In the end, photography can be journalistic or artistic, significant or intrusive or ephemeral.

What word should replaced “victimized” in Sentence 8?

Possible Answers:

vindicated

vitrified

venal

victimized (no change)

vilified

Correct answer:

vilified

Explanation:

“Vilified,” or defamed, makes the most sense in the context of the sentence. (“Venal” is an adjective and is therefore the wrong part of speech. “Vindicated” means cleared from blame, “vitrified” means turned to glass, “victimized” means turned into a victim, so none of these choices work well.)

Example Question #103 : New Sat

There are two different ways to consider the so-called “Dark Ages.” On the one hand, you can think of the period directly after the fall of the Roman Empire, when civilization began to collapse throughout the Western Empire. On the other hand, you can consider the period that followed this initial collapse of society. It is a gross simplification too use the adjective dark to describe the civilization of either of these periods.

As regards the first period, it is quite a simplification to consider this period to be a single historical moment. It is not as though the civilization switched off like a lightbulb. At one moment light and then, at the next, dark. Instead, the decline of civilization occurred over a period of numerous decades and was, in fact, already occurring for many years before the so-called period of darkness. Thus, the decline of civilization was not a rapid collapse into barbarism, but instead, was a slow alteration of the cultural milieu of a partitions of Europe. Indeed, the Eastern Roman Empire retained much of it’s cultural status during these years of decline!

More importantly, the period following the slow collapse of the Western Empire was much less “dark” than almost every popular telling states. Indeed, even during the period of decline, the seeds for cultural restoration was being sown. A key element of this cultural revival were the formation of monastic communities throughout the countryside of what we now know as Europe. Although these were not the only positive force during these centuries, the monasteries had played an important role in preserving and advancing the cause of culture through at least the thirteenth century and arguably until the Renaissance.

Which of the following best describes the areas of Europe in the cultural milieu slowly changed?

Possible Answers:

particulars

NO CHANGE

peculiarities

avowedly

portions

Correct answer:

portions

Explanation:

The correct word here is "portions" which obviously describes parts, not the whole of, something. "Partitions" describes usually physical barriers between things or places, and has less contextual and logical relevance than the the "portions" in this instance. There "was a slow alteration of cultural milieu" in PARTS of Europe.

None of the other options make logical or grammatical sense.

Example Question #121 : New Sat

The Moluccas is a chain, or archetype, of islands belonging to Indonesia. Historically, these islands were known as the Spice Islands for their abundance of nutmeg, cloves, mace, and pepper, this profundity of spices eventually drew colonial attention. Spices such as cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, anise, and pepper were particularly popular during the medieval times. In the 1600s, the Spice Wars arose as a result of competing Portuguese and Dutch interest’s in the Spice Islands. The bloody conflict ended in the deaths of many native Moluccans as well as European traders, wherefore both Portugal and the Netherlands gained and lost territories ranging from Africa and South America. For this day, strife occasionally breaks out on the islands although it is now motivated by religious and not colonial disagreements. It is located just west of New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean, and its more than 1,000 islands are home to more than 2 million people today.

What should replace the underlined word "profundity"?

Possible Answers:

NO CHANGE

proclivity

proscenium

profligacy

proliferation

Correct answer:

proliferation

Explanation:

"Profundity" is another word for profoundness or intellectual depth, which doesn’t fit the context of the sentence. We’re looking for a word that means abundance or rapid increase, which is the definition of “proliferation.” There were two equally valid paths to answering this question, one was based simply on word knowledge, if you knew the definitions of "profundity" and "proliferation" the answer was clear, and one was based on contextual awareness, the sentence was talking about the "abundance" and growth of spices as a commodity.

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