The better you are at identifying and decoding a sentence, the more quickly and accurately you will be able to answer sentence completions. We have compiled a list that describes the five main types of sentence completions.

One-word direct questions are the simplest kind of sentence completion, and are also the most common. About 6 of the 19 sentence completions on the SAT will be of this type. In one-word direct sentences, the sentence has a single flow of argument, and the word you choose to fill the blank must fit within that flow. One-word direct sentences come in two variations, each just as common as the other. The first type of one-word direct is just a simple sentence with a word left out. The second type of one-word direct involves two clauses set off from each other by a semicolon, colon, or comma. Usually, the first half of the sentence contains the blank, and the second half describes the word that goes in the blank.

The first type of one-word direct is just a simple sentence with a word left out:

The correct answer is dense; the undergrowth made it difficult for the explorers to stay on the path, meaning the undergrowth was impenetrable or dense.

This example was fairly easy. The more difficult sentences of this type usually involve harder vocabulary and describe more sophisticated concepts, but the structure of the sentence is rarely more complicated.

In this sentence, the phrase “all of the other wrestlers in the WWF were hesitant to pit themselves against his great might” makes it clear that Big John Stud must be supertough or fearsome. Note that this kind of sentence is particularly easy to decode. Your job is to figure out what kind of wrestler Big John Stud is, and the second half of the sentence gives evidence that describes precisely what kind of wrestler Big John Stud is. The example above used a semicolon; below you’ll find examples of this type of question using commas and colons.

If the president is “unable to put together a coherent sentence,” then his speeches must be very bad, or inarticulate.

An “unbeatable” team is invincible.

In rare instances, the structure of this type of sentence might be flipped, with the blank appearing after the semicolon, colon, or comma. In that case, the clause before the semicolon, colon, or comma provides the description or definition of the word needed to fill the answer blank.

On average, SAT tests include about four one-word contrast sentences. In this type of sentence completion, the single blank stands in contrast to some other clause in the sentence. There are two types of one-word contrast sentences: those that include hinge words and those that don’t. We will give examples of each.

If you are familiar with hinge words and can identify them when necessary, this type of sentence should be easy to recognize. Once you’ve identified the sentence as a one-word, hinged contrast, you know immediately that the word that fits in the blank must somehow stand in opposition to another part of the sentence. All you have to do then is determine which phrase or idea the blank contrasts.

Here, the hinge word, “but,” clearly sets the feelings of Carlita’s former friends against her own sentiments. Therefore, if Carlita’s former friends find her pranks annoying and juvenile, you should, without even looking at the answer choices, know that Carlita finds her pranks good, or funny, or something similar. The correct answer is hilarious.

Clearly the vocabulary in this sentence is more difficult than that in the easy question about Carlita. The sentence also deals with concepts and issues that are more sophisticated than those in the easy sentence. Even after you recognize “although” as a hinge word and see that the second half of the sentence must oppose the first half, it still might take a little effort to figure out what the opposition to “embodying the desire for peace and love rather than war” might be.

In attempting to answer this question, the first thing you should realize is that the “desire for peace and love rather than war” is a positive thing, and so the radical youth of the ’60s saw rock music as a good thing. Once you recognize this, it should be simple, given the hinge word “although,” that the conservatives saw rock music differently—as a negative thing, a “threat.”

With this knowledge, you are ready to look at the answer choices. Embrace, answer (A), means to support and show love, which is clearly not what the conservatives feared rock music might do to American moral values. Similarly, conservatives would have been happy with rock music if they saw it as revitalizing (renewing or giving strength to) or displaying American moral values, but the conservatives described in the sentence are not happy. The word justified (meaning “demonstrated to be correct or valid”) doesn’t fit well within the sentence; the conservatives might see the existence of rock music as a justification for increased stress on morals, but they wouldn’t see rock music itself as justifying morals. That leaves only undermined, which creates the proper negative connotation needed in the second half of the sentence to stand in contrast to the first half.

Of the five answer choices in the question we just answered, the correct answer was the only word that had a negative connotation. To embrace, revitalize, display, or justify are all either positive or neutral actions. Undermining someone or something, in contrast, is a negative action. That we picked the sole negative word in order to get the proper negative sense might seem perfectly correct and logical, but you must be cautious here. Remember that your goal is not to pick an individual word whose connotation opposes the first half of the sentence, but to pick a word that will make the entire second half contrast the first. For example, what if the sentence above had been:

In the previous example, the conservatives saw music as threatening something that they loved: moral values. The music therefore had to be doing something negative to those values. But in this example, the second half of the sentence discusses things the conservatives feared: “anarchy and the overthrow of the American government.” In order for it to make sense that the conservatives dislike rock music in this sentence, the rock music must be doing something positive for “anarchy and the overthrow of American government.” But it’s not as simple as, “The conservatives hate rock music, therefore rock music must be doing something negative.” You must always examine the word in the context of the sentences in which it appears.

Some sentences can create a contrast relationship without using hinge words. Without such an identifying marker, these contrast sentences are harder to identify. For example:

The sentence describes two different reactions to the “theory” at different times: at one time the world reacted a certain way, and now it reacts another way. Together, “once” and “now” describe a change through time that necessitates a contrast between the two halves of the sentence. In this example, the contrast to everyone accepting the theory could be that either no one believes in the theory or that many people dispute it. The only answer that works is controversial.

In general, when a sentence describes more than one point in time, it is usually a contrast sentence.

Two-word direct sentence completions contain two blanks that fit into the same flow of argument. About three of the sentence completions on the SAT will be two-word direct.

A good clue that a two-blank sentence is a direct sentence is the presence of same-direction hinge words such as and, because, since, so, and therefore. Another good way to determine if a sentence is direct is to ask yourself, “Does one part of the sentence happen because of another part of the sentence?” If the answer is yes, the sentence is probably direct. If the answer is no, if one part of the sentence happened despite the situation or facts described in the other part of the sentence, then the sentence as a whole is probably a contrast. Two-word direct sentences can come in a few forms:

Simple statements define a single thing, in this case the creation of a hypothesis; the two words you use must make that definition correct. In this case the answer is studying . . patterns because creating a hypothesis demands studying data and interpreting the patterns that the data form.

The answer is harsh . . terrified. In looking at the question, you should see that the two blanks help define a situation that directly caused the intrepid explorer never to venture into the tundra again.

As you can see in this example, many two-word direct sentences of this form actually use one blank as the key to understanding the other. In this sentence, the clause before the comma describes the general when under fire. The second half of the sentence then uses the first half to justify an assertion about the general’s character. In other words, there’s no way we can come to an understanding of the general’s character if we don’t know how the general acted under heavy fire, and the word that describes the general’s behavior under fire is a blank!

Frustrating, right? Not really. If the first blank describes behavior generally characteristic of the general, then the two words you choose must go together. You can immediately throw out composed . . tremulous, helpless . . efficient, and grave . . humorous because all three contain words that are antonyms. Frigid . . warlike just doesn’t make much sense together or in the sentence, so you can throw that choice out too, leaving you with serene . . unflappable, the correct answer.

Sentences in which one blank actually contains the word crucial to knowing what should fill the other blank are not particularly difficult. But in those first moments they might scare you a little, since the key word seems to be hidden. Simply knowing that these types of questions exist will help you answer them with ease.

Like one-word contrast sentence completions, two-word contrast sentences have some sort of internal shift in direction, where one side of the sentence is set against the other. These contrasts are usually marked by change-of-direction hinge words. In some instances, the contrast is created by progression in which what was true back then is no longer the case now. Below are examples of hinge word and non-hinge word two-word contrast sentence completions.

About five of the sentence completions on the SAT will be of this type.

We’ll give examples of an easy and a difficult hinge-word question. Notice that difficult questions have more advanced vocabulary and more sophisticated ideas.

With the obvious hinge word of “Although,” this sentence clearly sets the living experience of the “highest officials” against that of the “general populace.” The word “luxury,” used in reference to the life of the high officials, functions as a clue and makes it clear that their life is good and filled with riches—the general populace must be poor and unfortunate. As you go through the answers, the only one that fits is splendor . . poverty.

Obviously, this sentence is slightly longer, a little more grammatically complex, and involves more sophisticated vocabulary and concepts than the previous example did. However, the basic method for finding an answer is the same. The presence of the word “but” in the sentence should tell you that this is a contrast sentence, and you should then realize that the response of the early critics to Faulkner’s work is very different from the modern response. Further, the words “essential aspect of his style” in the clause about the modern response and the words “needlessly ornate” in the clause about the early critics should give you the sense that the modern response is positive while many early critics responded negatively to Faulkner’s style.

Therefore, the word that fills the first blank must allow the first clause to be positive, while the word for the second blank should make the second clause negative. You can eliminate proclivities . . extolled and descrimination . . praised because “extolled” and “praised” are positive actions in which critics who saw flaws in Faulkner’s work would not engage. Bombast . . enlightened can also be thrown out since its words just don’t make sense in the sentence. That leaves (C), abilities . . examined, and (D), genius . . decried. (D) is a much better choice, since “examined” in (C) doesn’t fit the context of the sentence.

Non-hinge contrast sentences are much less common than hinged ones. Those that you do come across will almost always be difficult. Such non-hinged sentences usually focus on time and how things have changed through time.

The word “irony” as it is used in this sentence should function as a clue that the way people acted or thought actually had the opposite effect than the one they expected. You should also have a good idea that the first blank discusses issues of disease or health since the second half of the sentence says that beliefs about something “ironically” brought about “plagues and epidemics.” With that knowledge, you should quickly be able to pick out well-being . . unsanitary as the correct answer, since only this choice deals with issues of health or well-being, while also logically filling the second blank with the word “unsanitary.”

There are some types of sentence completions that do not fit into any of these categories. Luckily, these “other” sentence completions aren’t all that common: almost 90 percent of all sentence completions will fit into the categories we’ve described above. Also, you can be sure that only two-word completions make up the “other” category. All one-word completions will either be direct or contrast.

Because they can vary quite widely, there is no way to provide you with examples of all of these other sentence completions. But rest assured that these other sentences are just as decodable as the sentences we’ve just covered. If you follow the standard procedure, paying attention to hinge words and tracking the flow of a sentence, you should be able to figure out how the two blanks function and relate within the sentence. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to choose the words that correctly fill the blanks, or, if the vocabulary gives you trouble, you’ll at least be able to eliminate answers that are obviously wrong and guess from among the remaining choices.