(C) seems to work for the second blank, but most test-takers won’t know the first word. Let’s hold on to this one as a possibility and keep going.
(D) doesn’t work because of the second blank—nothing in the sentence mentions anyone or anything being afflicted.
(E) doesn’t work because of the first blank. “Commend[ing]” something means praising it, and the opponents of an institute wouldn’t praise it (at least, not on a Sentence Completion question on the SAT).
So in this hypothetical scenario, we’re left liking the first word in (A) and the second word in (C). At this point I would recommend most people should skip the question, because I don’t like to put down an answer unless I’m positive I’m right (see my remarks on guessing earlier in this book, if you haven’t already).
If you feel confident, you may be able to figure out that “perquisites” sounds an awful lot like “perks,” the word used to describe bonuses that a person might receive at work or through a rewards program. If you notice the relationship between those two words, then you can be sure (A) is right. On the other hand, you might be able to recall that “reproach” is a negative word, so calling something “irreproachable” is actually a compliment, which wouldn’t work for the first blank, so (C) would have to be wrong.
But, again, for most test-takers this is probably going to be a good question to skip.
Page 734, Question 5
This question is one that test-takers often miss, even though they can usually figure it out if they think carefully about it.
At first, it might look like we need to know the meanings of the words “skepticism” and “nihilism,” but we actually don’t; in fact, we don’t need to know the word “elucidate,” either. What really matters here is the word “helps,” which tells us that the ancient philosophy went along with the 19th-century philosophy in some way.
When we look at the answer choices, the only one that works is (E), for two reasons. The first reason is that the prefix “fore-“ captures the possible relationship that ancient philosophers would have to the 19th-century: they came before it. The second reason is that the idea of “foreshadow[ing]” goes along with the idea of “help[ing]” that’s in the sentence.
(A), which is what people typically choose when they miss this question, doesn’t work because something from the ancient past can’t actively “suppress” something that ended up happening thousands of years later.
Page 762, Question 4
The key issue in this sentence is the phrase “on the contrary,” which tells us that the word in the second blank must be the opposite of “humanitarian.” It also tells us that the word in the first blank will have to indicate that the Professor doesn’t believe something.
Let’s start with the second blank. (A) is really the only option that gives us a workable word for the second blank. A lot of test-takers mistakenly think (B) offers a good option for that second blank, but, as always, we have to think very carefully about what that word actually means. It’s true that being “contemptible” is bad and that being a “humanitarian” is good, but the two words aren’t antonyms, and on the SAT we need antonyms in a situation like this.
Just to be sure, of course, I would check the other half of (A). “Dubious” works because the Professor doesn’t believe that the government is “humanitarian” (we know this because the Professor “insist[s]” something “on the contrary”). So we know that (A) is correct.
This is another good example of how being very careful with the meanings of words in the answer choices and in the sentence can help us zero in on correct answers.
Page 780, Question 8
In this sentence, the word in the second blank needs to go along with the idea of “fail[ing] to comprehend” something. That’s probably the best place to start, so let’s take a look at the answer choices.
(A) gives us a second word that most test-takers won’t know, so let’s come back to it.
(B) is a word we might be able to take apart if we don’t know it. “Vocal” indicates a relationship to the voice, “equi” indicates something to do with equality, and “un-” is a negating prefix. So this word seems like it has to do with the idea of not having equal voices, or of not giving equal voice to multiple things, or something along those lines. But none of that seems to mean the same thing as not comprehending something, so (B) is out.
(C) can work for us if we’re familiar with the use of “penetrate” to mean “understand.” Even if we don’t know that usage, though, we might still like this word for the structure of it. The combination of “-able” and “im-” means that this word is talking about the state of not being able to do something, which goes with the idea of “fail[ing]” in the original sentence.