PWN the SAT Q&A • Hello! Do you have any tips for the “__ most nearly means” questions? For instance, the passage says “”For the literary critic,” writes J.W. Ward, summing up the dilemma posed.” What word is “posed” most similar to? The answer choices are “questioned”, “presented”, and “positioned”. Thanks!

Anonymous

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Do you have any tips for the "__ most nearly means" questions? For instance, the passage says ""For the literary critic," writes J.W. Ward, summing up the dilemma posed." What word is "posed" most similar to? The answer choices are "questioned", "presented", and "positioned". Thanks!

Most or all of the choices will be synonymous with the word in some contexts, but only one will work in the context given. So…

You need to understand what the sentence is saying. To do this, you probably need to understand the paragraph and possibly the whole passage in which it falls.
You need to know what enough of the words in the choices mean so that you can identify the correct one, or eliminate all the incorrect ones.

If you’ve got both of those things down, then just read the sentence substituting in each word. If you’re no good on the first one, practice reading for the main idea. If you’re no good on the second one, hit the vocab books. :)