Reading Comprehension.
SENTENCE COMPLETION QUESTIONS.
A sentence completion question is based on a sentence with words missing at either one of two points. Solving the question is substituting the most likely words from the answers into these blanks. A sample item is:
1. The professor _______ contemporary journalism for being too _______.
(A) berated ---- childish
(B) lauded ---- evil
(C) criticized ---- authentic
(D) requited ---- responsible
(E) attacked ---- intelligent
Only (A) is a logical answer here, and it is correct. In all the other cases, the professor is either praising journalism for being bad, or disparaging it for being good.
This is how to solve sentence completion terms:
First, read the sentence very carefully ---- twice if necessary in order to get a good grasp of it.
Second, try to think of your own, original words to fill in the blanks before you even look at the given answer choices.
Third, look among the answers, not necessarily for you exact words, but for words that mean just about the same as the ones you thought of.
Fourth ---- and this step is usually not needed ---- where two or more answers remain after you have used the first three steps, substitute each choice into the sentence itself and then pick the answer that seems to make the most sense.
2. A wave of self-_______ convulsed her as she realized the _______ she had caused others.
(A) pity ---- suffering
(B) doubt ---- happiness
(C) contempt ---- pain
(D) esteem ---- service
(E) concern ---- inconvenience
Let us use this item as a first example of the method just presented. First, you carefully read the sentence. Second, you think of your own words for the blanks. Hatred and pain would appear to be likely answers. (Remember ---- you still have not looked at the answer choices actually present.) Third, you look among the answers for either your original words or, more likely, for words that mean the same as those you thought of. Suffering (A) is close to our word pain, but pity, with which it is matched in (A), is far from hatred, our choice. So (A) looks doubtful. Happiness and doubt (B) are far from our choices pain and hatred (B) is our. Contempt (C) means hatred, and our word pain is quite unusually, actually there among the understanding of the sentence ---- and this can happen ---- but you do not cause someone service. So (D) fails. Finally, (E) neither matches our words nor makes much sense: self-concern means focusing mainly on oneself and on one's desires and ideas to the exclusion of others and the world. It would not make sense for such a feeling to possess someone suddenly when they thought of the inconvenience they had caused others. So (E) is wrong. Three, and not four, steps were needed to solve this problem, the most sentence completion problems can be solved in three steps.
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