LearnVerbal AbilityReading Comprehension
15.06 · Reading Comprehension
Vocabulary in Context
Elite lesson9 rules10 questions
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Rules
At a glance 9 rules
- 1Sense here, not firstThe question wants the meaning in this sentence. The word's commonest meaning is usually the planted trap: a grave mistake is serious, not a burial place.
- 2Cover and predictCover the word, read the sentence before and after it, and say your own simple word for the gap. Then pick the option closest to yours.
- 3Swap and rereadPut each option in the word's place and reread the sentence. The right one keeps both the meaning and the grammar.
- 4What it acts onThe words around it decide: you address a letter but address a problem (tackle it); a play runs for a year, a colour runs in the wash.
- 5Use the signpostsContrast words (but, rather than), a colon or a following example often define the word: 'not lavish but frugal' shows frugal means sparing.
- 6Opposite sensesSome words carry two opposite senses (sanction: approve or penalise; dust: remove dust or sprinkle it on). Only the lines around the word can decide.
- 7Roots can misleadInflammable means it burns easily, and a pedestrian speech is dull, not on foot. Use a root to check a meaning, never to choose one.
- 8Repeated wordsIf the word appears more than once, answer for the place the question names; the other use is often the trap (a light parcel, a light shade of blue).
- 9Phrases and metaphorsFor a figurative phrase, read the example the passage builds around it and state its plain point; the literal picture is the trap.
Test yourself
Tap an option to answer. The first tap counts.
- Q1Easy
When engineers inspected the ninety-year-old road bridge over the river last winter, many in the town expected bad news. Rust had streaked its paint, and the bullock carts it was built for had long since given way to loaded trucks. Yet the report was reassuring. After testing every joint and girder, the team declared the steel frame sound, needing only fresh paint and a few new bolts. The bridge, they added, could carry traffic safely for another twenty years if it was looked after properly.
As used in the passage, the word 'sound' most nearly means
Correct answerstrong and in good condition
Why
Swap each meaning into the sentence and keep the one that fits a steel frame.
The frame needs 'only fresh paint and a few new bolts' and can carry traffic 'for another twenty years', so it is undamaged and strong; a frame cannot be noisy here, deeply asleep or well reasoned.
So 'sound' means strong and in good condition.
- Q2Easy
For decades, the hand-painted posters that once covered cinema walls in Mumbai were treated as rubbish. Painters earned little for each one, and most were torn down or pasted over within a week. Today the few that survived are prized by collectors. A poster that sold for a few hundred rupees in the 1980s can now fetch several lakh at auction, and few shares on the stock market have appreciated as fast over the same years. The painters, sadly, rarely shared in the windfall.
As used in the passage, the word 'appreciated' most nearly means
Correct answerrisen in value
Why
Look at what the word acts on: shares, compared for speed with a poster's price.
A poster that went from a few hundred rupees to 'several lakh' sets the comparison, so shares that 'appreciated as fast' have gone up in price; shares cannot be thankful, understanding or admiring.
So 'appreciated' means risen in value.
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