This document provides strategies for completing sentence completion questions on the SAT exam. It recommends covering the answers, using your own words, marking punctuation and conjunctions, deciding if the blank needs a positive or negative word, eliminating wrong answers, and not skipping questions even if you don't know all the words. It then provides examples of sentence completion questions and walks through the strategic thinking process to arrive at the correct answers.

1. SAT WIMBA CLASSROOM
CRITICAL READING – SENTENCE COMPLETION

2. FIRST – ANY QUESTIONS?

3. STRATEGIES FOR SENTENCE
COMPLETION
 COVER THE ANSWERS
 TRY TO PUT IN YOUR OWN WORD
 CIRCLE / MARK ALL PUNCTUATION AND
CONJUNCTIONS (they are SO important in
sentence completion questions)
 DECIDE IF POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE – “GOOD
WORD” OR “BAD WORD”???
 ELIMINATE, ELIMINATE, ELIMINATE
 Remember that the SAT is designed for
careLESS readers, so notice the details!

4. DON’T SKIP A QUESTION BECAUSE YOU DON’T
KNOW ALL THE WORDS!
 Use elimination
 Use DECODING
 Use good word / bad word

5. LET’S TRY ONE!
Moths are nocturnal pollinators, visiting scented
flower during the hours of darkness, whereas the
butterflies are ____ , attracted to bright flowers in
the daytime.
A. diurnal
B. quotidian
C. colorful
D. ephemeral
E. brilliant
1) Notice “whereas” ? Opposite idea
2) My guess would be “daytime”
3) Eliminate colorful, brilliant – so now guess if in first 2/3
of questions (Easy, Medium, Hard)
4) Nocturnal in first one – opposite is diurnal?

6.  The Victorian middle class woman was ____ by
restraints, obligations and ____ that prevented her from
achieving economic independence.
 A. hampered - aspirations
B. emancipated - strictures
C. fettered - responsibilities
D. ensnared - possibilities
E. surrounded - freedoms
 1) list of 3.. (restraints, obligations, __) – bad word
 2) key words “that prevented” – so first blank is “bad word” –
second blank is parallel to list
 3) first blank --- ELIMINATE (b) emancipated = good, (e)
surrounded=neutral
 4) second blank -- ELIMINATE (a) good word, (d) good word
–
 GUESS WHAT – only 1 left – C!!!!!

7. YOU TRY ONE~!
 There is great unevenness in his later plays; there
are moments of the greatest ____ in the midst of
great ____.
 A. lucidity - enlightenment
B. frivolity - triteness
C. insight - banality
D. obscurity - ambivalence
E. profundity - wisdom

8. TRY THIS ONE!
 The success of the business venture ____ his
expectations; he never thought that the firm would
prosper.
 A. confirmed
B. belied
C. nullified
D. fulfilled
E. ratified