Anatomy of a Sentence Completion
As described in the instructions you just read (if you
didn’t, go read them!), every sentence completion includes a sentence
with one or two blank spaces and five possible answer choices that
have either one or two words. Below are examples of each.
One-Word Completion
|
|
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Bel
Biv Devoe was a terrible rap and R&B group in the early ’90s;
its music was dull and its lyrics ----. |
| (A) |
excellent |
| (B) |
new |
| (C) |
poor |
| (D) |
loud |
| (E) |
fresh |
|
Two-Word Completion
|
|
|
Though
out of water seals lumber around and look ---- , within the sea
they move smoothly and ---- . |
| (A) |
cute..wonderfully |
| (B) |
sleek..purposefully |
| (C) |
ungainly..slowly |
| (D) |
cruel..quickly |
| (E) |
awkward..gracefully |
|
While looking at the structure and format of SAT sentence
completions, you should recognize two important facts:
-
The sentences are logical and contain all the information
necessary to define the word that fits in the blank.
- All
of the answer choices are grammatically correct. The correct choice
will be the word that makes the most sense. In other words, don’t
be fooled into picking an answer simply because it makes grammatical
sense.
These two guidelines are important. The first makes it
clear that you should almost always be able to figure out the gist
of the missing word or words. If you understand the vocabulary in
the sentence, you should be able to deduce if a missing word should
have a positive or negative connotation and what it should probably
mean. The second fact just tells you that all the words in the answer
choices will sound right, since they are all grammatically correct.
Choose your answers by meaning, not by sound.
