But if we can’t figure out that (A) doesn’t work, or if we don’t recognize that (E) doesn’t work, then we should probably skip this question.
No matter what, though, we shouldn’t pick “luxurious.” We know it’s not the same as the word “transparent.”
Page 458, Question 8
In this question, we want a word that relates to the idea of being “unpredictable” and “given to . . . shifting moods.”
Many of the answer choices will be hard for a lot of test-takers to figure out, but let’s give them a try.
(A) probably reminds us of the word “mercury,” or possibly the planet of the same name. If you’ve ever studied the element mercury in school, you know that it behaves very oddly and is often an exception to a lot of chemical trends. But let’s leave that aside for a moment.
(B) is a word you might recognize from warning labels on household cleaners, or on the sides of trucks on the highway. Neither context really involves something being unpredictable.
(C) is a word we can probably take apart. Its root seems to be related to the idea of being genuine, and the “dis-“ and “in-” prefixes could possibly indicate a few different things (as we noted earlier, prefixes are often less reliable than other parts of a word). But the idea of being genuine probably also doesn’t have much to do with the idea of being “unpredictable.”
(D) looks like it would mean something along the lines of “unable to be placed” or “unable to be placated.” But neither of those possibilities seems like it would mean the same thing as being “unpredictable” or “constantly shifting.”
(E) is a tough word for a lot of people to recognize on paper, though many people say the root of this word out loud when they get sick. The root is “phlegm,” pronounced “flem,” as in the gunk that can coat your lungs when you’re sick. If we can recognize the pronunciation from the spelling, we can probably also tell that nothing about the word “phlegm” specifically involves the idea of being predictable or not.
So if we can put all of that together, we can see that (A) might make sense, while the other answers don’t. In that case, we go ahead and mark (A), and get the question right. But if we end up being stuck with a few answer choices feeling unresolved, then we leave the question blank—remember that we can omit a half-dozen Critical Reading questions on most test days and still score above a 700 on that section of the SAT.
Page 475, Question 3
As we’ve discussed, we’re supposed to realize that, in SAT code, the first blank will mean the same thing as “brief,” and that the second blank will mean “instructive.”
Many people incorrectly choose (B) for this one because they realize that “concise” works great for the first blank without noticing that “elaborate” doesn’t mean the same thing as “instructive” for the second blank.
It’s true that there might be some things that are both “instructive” and “elaborate,” but the two words are not synonymous—not all “instructive” things are “elaborate.” Some are quite simple.
(D) is the correct option here because “succinct” is a synonym for “brief” and “enlightening” is a synonym for “instructive.”
Let this question serve as one more reminder of the fact that it’s very important to pay careful attention to every detail, especially on questions where you know what the words mean! I’ve talked to a lot of people who incorrectly chose (B) for this question, and every single one of them knew what “elaborate” and “instructive” meant, but let themselves pick (B) anyway. Don’t do that.
Page 487, Question 5
This is a difficult question for a lot of test-takers, and many of them choose to answer it incorrectly rather than leave it blank.
From the structure of the sentence and our knowledge of the SAT’s rules, we can tell that the word in the blank needs to restate the idea of being “preoccup[ied] with daily life in rural and agricultural settings.”
Many people choose (B) because they know that the word “prolific” is something that can be applied to writers or other artists who produce a large volume of work. But that word doesn’t fit here, because we’re looking for a word to describe the actual novels, and novels can’t produce large volumes of work. (On top of that, the sentence doesn’t say anything about producing a lot of work anyway.)
(E) might also be attractive to people who don’t pay close enough attention to detail, and for the same reason. It’s true that metaphors are related to the idea of literature, but “metaphorical” doesn’t mean the same thing as being interested in “rural and agricultural settings,” which is what the right answer needs to mean.