What the test asks of vocabulary
The words tested are rarely exotic. They are words a strong reader has met — deliberate, marginal, uniform, plausible, measured — placed where only one of them fits the logic the paragraph has already built. Two consequences follow.
What is actually being tested. (1) Ordinary words used with precision, and (2) familiar words carrying a less familiar sense. Almost never a word you have simply never seen. If a choice looks like a word nobody uses, it is usually not the answer.
Đây là lý do học 3.000 từ hiếm không nâng được điểm phần này. Đề không hỏi “bạn có biết từ này không”, đề hỏi “bốn từ này khác nhau ở chỗ nào, và đoạn văn cần đúng chỗ khác nhau nào”. Từ càng quen thì càng phải biết nó làm gì trong câu.
The four-step routine
- Read for the relation. Find the signal that connects the blank to the rest: contrast, continuation, cause, example or definition, concession.
- Cover the choices and predict. Write your own word — even a clumsy one. “Not finished” beats no prediction at all.
- Match. Take the option nearest your prediction.
- Test the other three. Put each into the sentence and read the whole sentence. An option that is merely true about the topic, but does not serve the relation, is out.
Historians of medicine long presented the nineteenth-century hospital as a place of last resort for the poor. Admission registers recovered from several cities have made that account look : paying patients, among them merchants and clergy, appear on the same wards.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- incomplete
- definitive
- cautious
- literal
Step 1: the colon delivers evidence of a group the old account left out, so the relation is correction by addition. Step 2: predict “it missed something”. Step 3: incomplete. Step 4: definitive says the account was settled, the opposite of what the registers do; cautious praises the historians for restraint they did not show; literal describes a way of reading, not a gap in coverage. Answer (A).
Bước 2 là bước hay bị bỏ nhất và cũng là bước đắt nhất. Nhìn bốn phương án trước khi tự điền là tự nộp mình cho nhiễu: ba trong bốn từ đều đúng nghĩa chung với chủ đề, và bộ não sẽ chọn từ nào nghe học thuật nhất. Tự điền một chữ Việt cũng được — “thiếu”, “ngược lại”, “mạnh hơn” — rồi mới mở phương án ra.
Five relations that decide a blank
Contrast — but, yet, however, although, instead, far from, rather than. Continuation — and, moreover, indeed, in fact. Cause or consequence — because, since, therefore, so, as a result. Example or definition — a colon, a dash, that is, in other words, or an appositive. Concession — admittedly, to be sure, of course…\ followed by a reversal.
Coastal towns in the region share a building rule that is nowhere written down: no roof may stand higher than the sea wall. Residents describe it not as a law but as a , binding because everyone expects everyone else to keep it.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- statute
- proposal
- convention
- coincidence
The sentence defines the blank twice: nowhere written down and binding because everyone expects everyone else to keep it. A convention is exactly a rule with force but no statute behind it. (A) is what the sentence explicitly denies. (B) describes something not yet adopted, but this rule is in force. (D) denies that it binds anyone. Answer (C).
Because the island's only fresh water floats as a thin lens on denser seawater, pumping too fast draws salt upward into the well. The limit on extraction is therefore set not by the volume of fresh water present but by the at which it can be withdrawn.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- cost
- rate
- purity
- season
The first sentence blames pumping too fast, which is a statement about speed, and the second sentence sets the blank against volume. Speed against quantity gives rate. The other three are all plausible things a well might be limited by, and none of them is what the first sentence identified. Answer (B).
Nhiễu hay nhất của dạng này là từ đúng với chủ đề nhưng không phải điều đoạn vừa nói. Ở ví dụ trên, giếng nước ngọt trên đảo đúng là có vấn đề chi phí, độ tinh khiết và mùa — nhưng câu trước chỉ nói về tốc độ bơm. Kiểm bằng câu hỏi: chữ này được câu nào trong đoạn dựng lên? Không chỉ được câu nào thì loại.
Direction first, then degree
Two thirds of wrong answers fail on one of two axes. Direction: the word points the opposite way from the relation. Degree: the word points the right way but far too hard or far too softly.
A standard textbook long described the tomb's wall paintings as unfinished. Inspection under raking light suggests instead that the outlines were meant to stay visible, which makes “unfinished” not so much wrong as .
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- fraudulent
- irrelevant
- unreadable
- misleading
Not so much wrong as demands a word on the same side as wrong but weaker or more precise. Misleading is exactly that: the label is not false so much as it points the reader away. Fraudulent jumps far past wrong and adds intent. Irrelevant changes the axis from truth to relevance. Unreadable describes the paintings, not the label. Answer (D).
Astronomers describe the outer solar system as empty, and by the standards of a planetary surface it is. Measured against the space between stars, however, the same region is .
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- entirely dark.
- equally empty.
- densely populated.
- slowly expanding.
However plus a new yardstick demands a reversal: empty by one standard, the opposite by another. Only (C) reverses. (B) refuses the reversal the sentence sets up. (A) and (D) are true statements about space that answer no part of the comparison. Answer (C).
Familiar words in unfamiliar senses
A word you know is more dangerous than a word you do not. The test regularly uses the second or third sense of a common word, and the first sense is offered as a trap in the explanation you give yourself.
Worth knowing in both senses: check (restrain) $\cdot$ novel (new) $\cdot$ arrest (halt) $\cdot$ economy (thrift) $\cdot$ plastic (shapeable) $\cdot$ register (level of language; to record) $\cdot$ reservation (doubt) $\cdot$ discipline (a field of study) $\cdot$ sound (solid) $\cdot$ temper (moderate) $\cdot$ yield (produce; give way) $\cdot$ appreciate (increase in value; understand fully) $\cdot$ afford (provide) $\cdot$ command (deserve, attract) $\cdot$ want (lack) $\cdot$ sanction (approve; penalise).
The results of the pilot study were promising, but the author was careful to the claim, noting that every participant had been recruited from a single clinic.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- publish
- qualify
- abandon
- repeat
But plus a limitation drawn from the sample sets the direction: the author narrows the claim without dropping it. That is qualify in its second sense. Abandon goes too far — the results are still promising — and publish and repeat do nothing to the claim's scope. Answer (B).
Gặp một từ quen mà thấy nghĩa quen không hợp câu, đừng loại nó. Đó thường chính là chỗ đề đang kiểm: qualify không phải “đủ điều kiện” mà là “giới hạn lại”; want trong văn cũ là “thiếu” chứ không phải “muốn”. Nghĩa quen không hợp là tín hiệu tra nghĩa thứ hai, không phải tín hiệu bỏ qua.
A context notebook, not a word list
A list of words with translations decays quickly because it stores no relation. Store the relation instead.
Từ $\cdot$ cả câu chứa nó (chép nguyên, không rút gọn) $\cdot$ quan hệ mà nó phục vụ (tương phản với X / định nghĩa bởi vế sau dấu hai chấm / hệ quả của Y).
Mỗi buổi luyện, lấy khoảng năm từ từ chính những đoạn vừa làm — kể cả từ mình đã chọn đúng nhưng chọn bằng cảm giác.
Tiêu chí kiểm tra một dòng trong sổ có dùng được không: che từ đi, đọc câu, bạn có tự điền lại được không. Điền lại được nghĩa là bạn đã lưu quan hệ chứ không lưu bản dịch. Không điền lại được thì dòng đó chưa xong, chép thêm một câu nữa cho từ đó.
Editors of the dictionary refused to admit a word until they had found it in print three times, in three separate sources. The rule kept invention out, but it also delayed the entry of words that had been spoken for generations. What looked like a standard of evidence functioned, in practice, as a standard of .
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- accuracy
- literacy
- novelty
- pronunciation
No single sentence supplies the answer; the paragraph does. The rule counts a word only when it has been printed, and the words it delays are the ones that were only spoken. A test that sorts by print rather than by speech is a test of literacy. (A) restates the rule's own description of itself, which the sentence contrasts with what it did in practice. (C) and (D) name things the rule does not measure. Answer (B).