In-Context Vocabulary Questions
How do you work out what an unfamiliar word means in a sentence?
Identify the word's part of speech, then substitute each answer option directly into the sentence in its place and check whether the result still makes sense with the rest of the sentence — not just whether the option is a plausible synonym in isolation. The right answer must fit both the dictionary sense of the word and the specific sentence it appears in.
Why sentence context changes the answer
This question asks for the meaning of an underlined word, but unlike a standalone vocabulary question, the surrounding sentence does real work. Some words have more than one meaning — "brazen" can mean "bold" or "made of brass" — and the sentence itself decides which applies. An option can be a correct dictionary synonym and still be the wrong answer, if it doesn't fit what the sentence is actually describing.
Worked example
"His laconic teacher thought words weren't as good as silence." The word "laconic" means:
A. Curt B. Talkative C. Quiet D. Adventurous E. Enigmatic
Laconic is an adjective describing the teacher, and the second half of the sentence tells us how: this is someone who values silence over words. Substitute each option in turn. "His talkative teacher thought words weren't as good as silence" creates a direct contradiction — a talkative person wouldn't hold that view. Adventurous doesn't relate to speech at all.
That leaves Curt, Quiet and Enigmatic, all loosely related to reticence. Enigmatic means mysterious, which doesn't specifically capture using few words. Between Curt (using few words, often bluntly) and Quiet (making little sound), the word specifically about a manner of speaking little is Curt — Quiet more precisely describes an absence of sound generally, not a personal style of brevity. Option A is correct.
When the word has more than one meaning
If a word could plausibly mean two different things, the sentence around it settles which one applies. Look at the tone of the surrounding passage and what the sentence needs the word to be doing — describing a person, a mood, an object — and choose the option that fits that specific role, not just any dictionary-accurate one.
Steps
- Identify what part of speech the underlined word is, and what it's describing
- Substitute each option directly into the sentence and check the result still makes sense
- Eliminate options that contradict or don't relate to the rest of the sentence
- Where a word could have multiple meanings, let the sentence's context decide which applies
This is one chapter of the Scholarship & Entrance English Assessment Guide. The complete guide — every technique, collected in one document — is available as a free PDF from the guide's main page.