Craft and Structure

Words in context

By Petra Chahine 1
On the Reading and Writing section of
What are
your SAT, some questions will ask you
to select the most logical and precise
"words in
word or phrase in a given context.
context"
questions?

By Petra Chahine 2
By Petra Chahine 3
How should we determine
the most "precise" word?
• A "precise" word is one that means exactly what it should in
a given situation: it will fit its sentence perfectly and reinforce
the text's meaning.
• We're not just looking for a word that sounds right or looks
good. Instead, we need to understand the text and select the
word with a meaning that best matches the point the text is
making.

By Petra Chahine 4
To help us identify the best word in context, we should
focus on two things: context and connotation.

Context: It refers to the

Connotation: They are the
specific scenario we're
associations that we have with
attempting to match a word or
different words. One common
phrase to. The trick then is to
example of connotation is
match the word we're looking
whether a word feels positive
for with the equivalent idea in
or negative.
the other statement.

By Petra Chahine 5
How to approach words in context questions
1 2
Step 1: Summarize the text in Step 2: Identify the key word,
your own words phrase, or idea
• Try to summarize the main • Often, there will be one word
idea in your own words or phrase in the text that has
nearly the same meaning as the
correct answer.
By Petra Chahine
3
Step 3: Select the word that matches
• If a choice changes the meaning of
the text, or introduces a new idea or
perspective, then it's not the most
precise word in context
6
Top tips:

Avoid unknowns: On
Charge it (+/-): . Is the test day, you may
text expressing encounter some words
something positive? If that you don't know.
so, we can eliminate Many test-takers make
any choices that are too the mistake of selecting
negative or neutral. words that they don't
know in the choices.

By Petra Chahine 7
To raise your chances
of getting words in Eliminate Select
context questions
correct, try this
instead: Eliminate what you Select an option from
can from the words what remains.
you do know

Note: The only time you should select a word you don't know is if
you can confidently eliminate all of the other choices.

By Petra Chahine 8
By Petra Chahine 9
By Petra Chahine 10