Two directions and nothing else
Before a word can be right it has to point the right way. Every passage that carries a blank sets up a direction, and the blank either continues that direction or reverses it. Get the direction first and half the choices fall away without any thought about shades of meaning.
Reversal. but, yet, however, although, though, whereas, nevertheless, instead, by contrast, on the other hand, far from, rather than, not… but, for all, despite, still, if anything.
Continuation. and, also, moreover, furthermore, indeed, in fact, similarly, likewise, so, thus, therefore, because, since, which is why, the same is true of.
Restatement. A colon, a semicolon followed by a paraphrase, a dash followed by a definition, or the phrase in other words. Here the blank is answered word for word by what follows it.
Nhiều học sinh học thuộc danh sách trên rồi vẫn sai, vì họ chỉ tìm tín hiệu ở đầu câu chứa chỗ trống. Trên đề thật, tín hiệu thường nằm ở câu trước hoặc ở nửa sau câu chứa chỗ trống. Cách làm đúng: đọc hết đoạn, rồi vẽ một mũi tên trong đầu cho mỗi câu — lên hay xuống, thuận hay nghịch — và xem chỗ trống rơi vào chỗ nào của chuỗi mũi tên đó.
Field guides describe the octopus as solitary, and for most species the description holds. Off the coast of eastern Australia, though, one species gathers in dens of a dozen or more, and the animals there throw shells at one another, signal with changes of skin colour, and evict intruders from a favoured spot. The behaviour is the textbook account: not a variation within solitude but a small society.
- consistent with
- derived from
- at odds with
- indifferent to
Though in the second sentence reverses the direction set by the first, and the colon then restates the blank as not a variation within solitude but a small society. So the blank must express opposition. Consistent with (A) keeps the original direction; derived from (B) makes the behaviour follow from the account; indifferent to (D) is too weak, since the passage sets the two in direct conflict. Answer (C).
Continuation: the blank must extend, not add
A continuation signal does not merely permit a same-direction word — it requires the blank to carry forward the specific claim already on the table.
Salt marshes slow incoming water, and a wave that has crossed a hundred metres of marsh grass arrives at the shore carrying a fraction of the energy it began with. The same grasses trap sediment, so the marsh floor rises as the sea does. Both effects point the same way: the marsh the coast behind it, and it does so without a metre of concrete.
- exposes
- protects
- surveys
- reshapes
Both effects point the same way is an explicit continuation signal, and both effects described are defensive. Exposes (A) reverses; surveys (C) has nothing to do with either effect; reshapes (D) is true of the sediment effect alone and misses the wave energy entirely, so it does not gather both. Answer (B).
Punctuation is a signal too
A colon says: what follows restates or delivers what precedes. That makes the colon the most generous gift on the test, because the answer is usually sitting on the other side of it in different words.
The committee's decision surprised no one who had read the minutes: every objection raised in the final session had already appeared, in almost the same words, in a memo circulated four months earlier, and the memo's recommendation was the one the committee adopted. The vote a conclusion that the record shows had been reached long before anyone sat down.
- reversed
- complicated
- postponed
- ratified
The colon promises an explanation of surprised no one, and the explanation is that the outcome was settled in advance. A vote that enacts an already-settled outcome confirms it. Reversed (A) and complicated (B) go against the grain of surprised no one; postponed (C) is contradicted by the fact that a vote took place. Answer (D).
Dấu hai chấm và dấu chấm phẩy thường bị đọc như dấu phẩy, tức là bị bỏ qua. Trên đề Words in Context, dấu hai chấm gần như luôn là chỗ chứa đáp án: vế sau nói lại vế trước bằng chữ khác. Thấy dấu hai chấm mà chưa dùng tới nó thì coi như chưa làm câu đó.
Signals hidden inside phrases
The hardest items never use but. They bury the reversal inside a phrase that reads as ordinary prose.
Far from X — the sentence will assert not-X, often strongly.
Rather than X — the blank is a genuine alternative to X, not a milder version of it.
For all X — concedes X, then asserts something X would not lead you to expect.
If anything — the truth runs in the opposite direction from the expectation just raised.
Not merely X — keeps X and adds something larger; this is a continuation with a lift, not a
reversal.
A common account of the printing press has cheap books sweeping manuscript culture away within a generation. Far from disappearing, handwritten copies for another century in exactly the settings that valued them most — legal chambers, court libraries, religious houses — where a scribe could produce a document tailored to one reader and to no one else.
- persisted
- vanished
- declined
- diversified
Far from disappearing asserts the opposite of disappearance, and for another century supplies the duration. Vanished (B) and declined (C) are both movements toward disappearance. Diversified (D) would claim a widening of kinds, which the sentence does not support — it names three settings that already valued manuscripts. Answer (A).
The engineer who designed the bridge did not try to make it rigid. Rather than resisting the wind, the deck was built to it: the roadway twists a few degrees in a gale and returns, and loads that would crack a stiff structure are shed as motion instead of being carried as stress.
- block
- accommodate
- measure
- amplify
Rather than resisting requires a real alternative to resistance, and the colon spells it out: the deck moves with the wind. Block (A) is a synonym for resisting, the very thing rejected. Measure (C) belongs to an instrument, not a roadway, and amplify (D) overshoots — the deck absorbs the load, it does not increase it. Answer (B).
Chú ý cái bẫy ở phương án (A) trong ví dụ trên: sau “rather than resisting”, nhiều học sinh chọn một từ đồng nghĩa với chính cái vừa bị loại. Lý do là mắt bắt được chữ “wind” rồi tự động nghĩ tới “chắn gió”. Nguyên tắc: sau “rather than X”, gạch chữ X ra khỏi vùng đáp án cùng với mọi từ cùng nghĩa với X.
Two turns in one passage
When a passage reverses twice, the blank sits after the second turn and must agree with the final position, not the middle one.
Critics who dismissed the novel's flat prose assumed the author lacked an ear. Her letters and drafts show otherwise: she rewrote the opening eleven times, and each version is plainer than the one before it. The flatness was not a limit she failed to overcome but a she worked to reach, and readers who take it for carelessness are reading against everything the drafts record.
- constraint
- habit
- goal
- concession
Turn one: show otherwise reverses the critics. Turn two: not… but reverses a limit. So the blank must name something she aimed at deliberately. Constraint (A) is a synonym for the limit just rejected; habit (B) implies something unconsidered, which the eleven drafts contradict; concession (D) would mean she gave something up. Answer (C).
For all the attention paid to the sculptor's late marbles, the works that changed how his contemporaries carved were the small terracotta models he made first. Other sculptors visited the studio to see them, and the twisting poses that appear in stone across the city over the following decade appear in his clay a year earlier. The marbles are what the city remembers; the models are what it .
- imitated
- commissioned
- discarded
- restored
For all concedes the fame of the marbles and then asserts the opposite of what that fame would predict. The evidence is that other sculptors copied the poses. Commissioned (B) is contradicted by the models being studio work, discarded (C) reverses the point of the sentence, and restored (D) has no basis in the passage. Answer (A).
“For all X” và “Despite X” dịch sang tiếng Việt đều ra “dù X”, nên học sinh hay coi chúng là lời khen. Thật ra chúng là lời nhượng bộ: người viết công nhận X để chuẩn bị nói một điều mà X không dự đoán được. Hễ câu mở đầu bằng “For all…” thì gần như chắc chắn ý chính của đoạn nằm ở vế sau và đi ngược với vế trước.
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