Page 520, Question 8
This is one more excellent example of the general uselessness of memorizing vocabulary words for the majority of Sentence Completion questions. The correct answer here is the word “discriminating,” because the word “discriminating” originally referred to the idea that a person had very good taste and could separate good things from bad things in a way that the average person would not be able to do. (Of course, the more common use of the word “discriminating” today simply refers to the idea of treating people differently based on their race, gender, age, and so on—in that context, it’s obviously not a positive thing.)
I would be willing to bet that most students who approach Sentence Completion questions as an exercise in vocabulary knowledge would not even bother to memorize the word “discriminating” if they saw it on a list because they would be sure they already knew what it meant. And they would probably end up missing this question as a result.
But if we approach the test correctly, thinking more about the words we know and about the rules of the test rather than simply looking to apply one of the 3,000 oversimplified definitions we might have learned from a flashcard, this question is probably answerable.
We can tell that (A) doesn’t work because the sentence doesn’t refer to the judges as being unknown or difficult to find, which is what “obscure” would mean.
(B) might be a bit more of a challenge for a lot of test-takers, though, because the root of “deferential” might sound an awful lot like the root of “differences” in the text, but there’s a difference between “deferring “ and “differing.” To “defer” something is to put it off for later, while “differing” involves being different. Since the text doesn’t talk about people putting anything off for later, “deferential” isn’t going to be correct.
(D) is a word a lot of test-takers pick because it seems hard to take apart, and because they mistakenly assume that (C) must not be correct. But if we look more carefully, we may see that “sanctimonious” has something like “sanct” for a root, and we may realize that this is similar to the idea of “sanctuary,” a word we might know from political or religious contexts. If we can work that out, we can realize that (D) isn’t the right answer either.
(E) also doesn’t work—if we don’t know this word, we might be able to break it apart and realize the root is “lent,” which has a relationship to the idea of being slow in French and Spanish. But nothing in the sentence is talking about anyone being slow or fast, so this is the wrong answer.
At this point, it would be good for a lot of test-takers to revisit the word “discriminating.” We know that “discrimination” in the more common context involves focusing on differences between people; hopefully, given the fact that the rest of the words don’t work, we can realize that, in the context of evaluating food, the idea of “discriminating” also involves focusing on differences, though of a different type. This makes (C) correct.
Page 549, Question 4
This is another example of a question in which most test-takers will try to make an ill-informed guess based on their gut feelings, and be wrong.
The key in this question is the phrase “diametrically opposite.” The word “opposite” goes with the prefix “anti-” in choice (B), which is how we know that (B) is correct.
Many people will choose (D) or (E) because their prefixes seem to suggest the idea of two things, but the sentence doesn’t just say that New Zealand and Spain are two different countries—its says they are opposites in some way.
Let me use this question as an opportunity to remind you that it’s extremely important to pay careful attention to these kinds of small details! The people who score in the top 5 or 10 percent on the SAT are not, generally, people who memorize a ton of stuff; instead, they’re people who pay careful attention to the important parts of each question, and who avoid making small mistakes.
Page 549, Question 6
This is another question in which paying careful attention to the rules of the test might let us figure out the correct answer even if we don’t know all the words in the answer choices.
The sentence refers to a “sound” being made by a youth orchestra. Note that the word “cacophonous” has the root “phon” in it, which indicates a relationship to the idea of sound in a lot of other words (like “telephone,” “phonics,” and “homophone”). This connection alone might be enough for us to feel certain that (A) is the right answer.