Page 390, Question 2
Here, we want a word that will mean the same thing as “simple and direct.”
Many students will know the meanings of (A), (D), and (E), and will be able to tell that those words don’t mean the same thing as “simple and direct.”
But what about (B) and (C)?
(C) might seem like a word that could be broken up and analyzed. If we did that, we would probably conclude that “-atious” was the suffix (or compound suffix), and that the root was something like “ostent.” But that probably doesn’t help much—it’s unlikely that we might be able to think of any word related to that.
(B) might offer more promise, actually. In this age of camera-phones and social media, many students are familiar with the idea of “candids,” which are un-posed, un-planned photographs. This might be enough of a connection to let them realize that the word “candid” means “simple and direct”—in other words, it refers to something that has no pretense or staging about it.
If a student makes that connection, he should mark (B) and be confident of his choice. If not, and he’s left with more than one or two choices seeming possible, this might be a good question to skip.
Many students miss this question because they choose either “intricate” or “fictional,” even though the students who choose those answers often know what those words mean. While it might be possible in real life (I guess) for photographs to “provide an intricate reflection” or “provide a fictional reflection,” neither “intricate” nor “fictional” actually restates an idea from the rest of the sentence, which means that those choices are incorrect on SAT Sentence Completion questions.
Notice, too, that we don’t need to know what the phrase “bygone social milieu” means at the end of the sentence. Remember that it’s possible for us to answer Sentence Completion questions with total confidence even if we don’t know every single word involved in the question!
Page 390, Question 3
This is a single-blank questions that many, many test-takers will correctly choose to skip. This is a question with a fairly large share of challenging words, and the words that might be easier for test-takers to figure out are, unfortunately, not the correct answer.
We want a word that means “impulsive,” and indicates a willingness to follow “sudden whims.”
Many students will choose to begin by attacking (D) and (E). We can probably tell that (D) will mean something like “lacking passion,” which isn’t going to be the right answer here. (E) also seems like it doesn’t have anything to do with the idea of being impulsive; it seems more related to words like “decoration” or “decorum.”
We may also be able to tell that (C) is vaguely related to words like “eloquent” if we can realize that “-acious” is a compound suffix and the root is something like “loq.” Maybe we figure that out, maybe we don’t.
Even if we do figure out that “loquacious” isn’t a restatement of the idea of being “impulsive,” we’re still stuck with the words “capricious” and “bombastic.” “Capricious” will be a hard word to take apart—its root will seem to be something like “capric” or “capr,” but most test-takers won’t really know what to do with that root. “Bombastic,” on the other hand, is probably easier to take apart—so much easier, in fact, that many test-takers will incorrectly choose it, just because they feel comfortable with the root “bomb.”
Test-takers often like the idea of the root “bomb” restating the idea of something being “impulsive,” because a bomb is a device for creating a destructive impulse of energy. But the rest of the sentence involves the idea of “sudden whims,” and nothing in the idea of a “bomb” should strike us as inherently whimsical.
So if we can realize that “bombastic” doesn’t go with the idea of “sudden whims,” then we might be able to tell that “capricious” is the only choice we haven’t been able to eliminate (assuming we can also work out that “loquacious” is unlikely to be correct). This could be enough for us to be able to see that (A) is correct.
Unfortunately, most test-takers who try to work out an answer here will choose “bombastic” because they ignore the idea of the “sudden whims.” This is one more good example of how critical it is to pay attention to details on the SAT, and not to fall in love with an answer choice just because it kind of seems to work for part of a sentence but not all of it.