Description:
One-Blank Sentence Completion questions are sentences that have one missing word represented by a blank.
Your task to replace the blank with the best vocabulary word from the answer choices.
Approach
Sentence completion questions are vocabulary questions. Learn as many vocab words as possible to maximize your chances!
Be sure to check out our
Vocab Videos
to learn great words!
Although studying vocab is essential, you can get sentence completion questions right even if you don't know all of the words.
1) A Sample Sentence Completion
We will use the following question to talk about One-Blank Sentence Completion strategy:
Although some of the revelations in the movie star's memoirs will surprise even his most ardent fans,
much of his story is quite ________.
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significant
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familiar
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impressive
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explicit
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thorough
2) Five Steps to successful One-Blank Sentence Completions
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Read
the sentence all the way through. Don't just stop at the blank and start looking for the answer.
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Diagram
the main ideas of the sentence.
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Underline the key to the sentence.
It will be about half of the sentence.
What is the key to the practice question above?
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Circle any change-up words.
Change-ups are words like "but," "however," "although," "even though," or "yet."
They change the definition of the key to the sentence.
What are the change up words in the practice question above?
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Make up
your own word or concept for the blank.
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What word would you put in the blank in the above question?
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Eliminate
three bad answer choices.
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Which answers definitely don't work?
Choose
the best answer. Remember the dictionary!
3) You can only deal with what you know
It's not worth your time to think about answers that you don't know.
Don't eliminate words you don't know. But don't make up definitions for words you don't know either.
4) What would Merriam Webster Do?
The dictionary definition of the right answer must fit the sentence exactly.
It's not enough to think that an answer might fit or could fit. You cannot envision a scenario in which the word would fit.
The right answer's definition either works for the sentence 100% or not at all!
Ask yourself the hard question- "Is this word right or not?"
5) Pay attention to punctuation
Marks of punctuation break up the logic of a sentence. Take note of any punctuation
(commas, colons, and semi-colons) in the sentence, because the important information is probably nearby.
If there is a colon or semi-colon in the sentence, the key will come after it every time.
6) Practice: Now try this one...
The teacher's approach to education is distinctly ________;
she employs techniques drawn from many different sources.
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personal
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unique
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eclectic
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thriving
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skillful
