Why this matters on the SAT
Most common words have more than one meaning, and an “as used in the text” question asks which one a passage is using. It quotes a word from a short text, usually a novel, a story or a poem, and offers four meanings. Often several of the choices are real meanings of the word, so knowing the word isn't enough. About one words in context question in seven looks like this, and it really asks one thing: what does the text need this word to mean here?
Solution to the example
Cover the word: Mara, however, stayed _____. “However” sets her against those who began to shout.
Predict: calm.
Cross out: arranged (B) and combined (C) are real meanings too, as in a composed photo or a team composed of its players, but neither describes a person in the rapids.
Check: put each choice left in place of composed. Stayed calm matches speaking steadily; stayed written says nothing, so the answer is D.
A tempts most: composed usually comes with music or writing, but nothing in the raft is written.
SAT example
The following text is from a travel journal describing a rafting trip.
As the wind rose and the raft lurched in the rapids, some of us began to shout over one another. Mara, however, stayed composed, gripping the oar and speaking steadily: "One stroke at a time." Her example steadied the rest of us.
As used in the text, what does the word “composed” most nearly mean?
Written
Arranged
Combined
Calm
An “as used” question is a words in context question with the blank already filled in. So treat the quoted word as a blank: cover it, find the clue, and predict the meaning in your own plain words before you read the choices. Predict from the text, not from the word, since the word brings to mind the meaning you use most. In the examples, the word being tested is bold, and the clue is underlined.
With the word covered, the clue after the colon does the work: someone who never smiles while reading scans looks serious. Uncover it, and grave may bring a burial place to mind first. Your prediction already tells you which meaning the text uses: grave also means serious, solemn.
Then match the choices to your prediction, and check the one you pick by putting it in place of the word: The doctor's face was serious says exactly what the text shows.
Try it on this question: cover soundly, predict from what the guide in the passage says, then read the choices.
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from an early twentieth-century travel journal.
We started before dawn, our lamps throwing small islands of light on the trail. The slope looked forbidding, but the guide waved us on. "No fear," he said; "the stones are laid soundly; you can trust your footing."
As used in the text, what does the word "soundly" most nearly mean?
The quoted word arrives with the meaning you use most, and the choices count on it. The wrong choices are often other real meanings of the same word, the everyday one among them. So a choice isn't right because the word can mean that; it's right when the text uses that meaning. In these versions, each meaning of arrest takes the word's place:
All three are real meanings of arrest, and only one fits a drug and a spreading infection. Putting each meaning in place of the word is the check, and it's how you catch the trap.
The topic can plant the trap, too. In a passage about a kitchen, seasoned pulls you toward spices:
A seasoned chef is an experienced one. So when a choice matches the topic better than it matches the sentence, check it twice. Don't overcorrect, though: when the clue points to the everyday meaning, the everyday meaning is the answer. The text decides either way.
In this question, the word's everyday meaning is one of the choices. Predict from the text before it tempts you.
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from a 1906 magazine profile of a stage actress.
She handled publicity with unusual care. In print she affected surprise at every compliment, as though fame had taken her unawares; in person, however, she arranged interviews, poses, and premieres with meticulous precision.
As used in the text, what does the word “affected” most nearly mean?
Nearly every “as used” question on the SAT quotes a novel, a story, a memoir, a play or a poem, and most of those were written a century or more ago. Such texts rarely put a “because” or a “however” near the word. The scene is the clue: who is there, what is happening, what someone feels. When no signal word helps, picture the scene and predict from it.
Here the word keeps a meaning you know, and the trap is a meaning from another setting. Older texts add a second trap: they use plain words in senses that have since faded.
Want first meant lack, and for want of still does. One more sign of a second meaning: a word you know as a noun, used as a verb. To harbor a doubt has nothing to do with boats; it means to keep the doubt in your mind.
This question gives you no signal word near the quoted word, so picture the scene before you predict.
Practice problem
The following text is from a 1925 travel memoir.
We crossed the desert in silence. Not even the camels complained. Toward evening a slim fringe of date palms signaled the presence of the river long before we could hear its water.
As used in the text, what does the word “signaled” most nearly mean?
Second meanings turn up in fill-in questions too, as the answer. They're rarer there, but they catch anyone who crosses out a plain word because its everyday meaning doesn't fit the blank. So before you cross out a plain word, try its other meanings.
Take check. You know it as verify, but it also means hold back: you check a fire's spread, keep your temper in check, and in a system of checks and balances, each branch can hold back the others.
Read as verified, checked makes no sense, so it's tempting to cross it out. Read as held back, it's your prediction exactly. These plain words often show up in their second meanings:
| Word | The meaning you know | The second meaning | As in |
|---|---|---|---|
| check | verify | hold back | check a fire's spread |
| qualify | meet the requirements | limit, add a condition to | qualify a claim |
| temper | (as a noun) anger | moderate, tone down | temper your hopes |
| measured | found by measuring | calm, deliberate | a measured reply |
| reserved | booked ahead | holding back, guarded | reserved praise |
| betray | be disloyal to | show without meaning to | her voice betrayed her nerves |
| material | stuff, fabric | relevant, important | a material fact |
Use the clue in each sentence to pick the meaning it uses.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The cleared strip of land should check the fire: nothing on it can burn.
Which meaning fits?
That's the routine from the first lesson, in the same five steps, with this lesson's moves added: cover the word in the first step, picture the scene in the second, and keep a plain word in the fourth. It works for every “as used” question and for any blank with a plain word among the choices, and the worked examples and the mixed practice problems follow it:
In this question, a plain word may look wrong at first. Before you cross it out, try its other meanings.
Practice problem
At a new photography exhibit, the curator’s wall text is intentionally ______: it lists each photo’s title, date, and printing process but offers no interpretation, leaving visitors to draw their own conclusions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
In this question, the passage is about wire sculptures, and the three wrong choices are all real meanings of charge. The scene, not the topic, decides.
Worked example
The following text is adapted from a museum review of a contemporary sculpture exhibition.
In the dim gallery, Nakamura’s wire sculptures cast shadows that appear more solid than the lines that make them. Viewers keep stepping sideways, trying to locate the “true” boundary of each form. Some visitors laugh nervously; others grow quiet. The artist seems to rely on this restless looking; without it, the work would lose much of its charge.
As used in the text, what does the word “charge” most nearly mean?
Electrical energy
A sudden forward movement
A formal accusation
A tense emotional intensity
Step 1
Cover the word: without it, the work would lose much of its _____. The it is the viewers' looking: The artist seems to rely on this restless looking. And the sentence before shows what that looking does to people: Some visitors laugh nervously; others grow quiet.
Step 2
Nervous laughter and a hush are signs of tension. So what the restless looking gives the work is a kind of tension, a hold on the people looking at it. Predict tension or emotional power.
Step 3
All three are real meanings of charge, so each needs a reason to go. A tempts most, because these are wire sculptures and charge is a word from physics class. But wire is only what the sculptures are made of, and the text never mentions electricity. The work relies on the viewers, so A goes.
B is a rush forward, as in a cavalry charge. The viewers keep stepping sideways, and nothing rushes ahead, so B goes. C is an accusation, and no one in the gallery is accused of anything, so C goes too.
Step 4
Charge can also mean a thrill, a jolt of feeling, and a moment full of tension is called charged. Put D in place of the word: the work would lose much of its tense emotional intensity. The nervous laughs and the hush show exactly this. The answer is D.
In this fill-in question, the answer is a plain word in a meaning many students don't know, next to a stronger word that seems to say more.
Worked example
Developmental psychologists studying how children learn sorting rules often average performance across many trials, a practice that can make abrupt, stage-like progress appear smoother than it is. In one longitudinal study, however, children briefly alternated between an established sorting rule and a newly discovered one. Although this pattern could not by itself establish that development proceeds in stages, it exposed competition between strategies that the averages concealed. The researchers therefore regarded the trial-to-trial variability as _____ rather than as statistical noise.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
material
intermediate
decisive
typical
Step 1
The blank sits right before rather than as statistical noise, an opposite signal. Statistical noise is random wobble in data that means nothing, so the blank is set against meaningless. The sentence before says why: it exposed competition between strategies that the averages concealed. The back-and-forth showed something real.
Step 2
Predict meaningful or worth attention. One more clue limits how strong the word can be: Although this pattern could not by itself establish that development proceeds in stages. The variability mattered, but on its own it couldn't prove that development comes in stages.
Step 3
Decisive tempts most. It means settling a question, and it sounds like the strongest way to say the variability mattered. But the “Although” clause says the pattern couldn't settle the question by itself, so C goes. Intermediate means in between, which might describe a stage but not how the researchers judged the variability, so B goes. Typical means usual, which says nothing about meaning, so D goes.
Material stays, even if you know it only as stuff or fabric. Before you cross out a plain word, try its other meanings.
Step 4
Material also means relevant, important, as in a material fact. Put it in the blank: the researchers saw the variability as something that mattered, not as random noise, while the “Although” clause keeps it short of proof. The text shows exactly this. The answer is A.
These five questions mix the cases. On each one, cover the word or find the blank first, and predict before you read the choices.
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from an 1897 expedition journal.
As the first rays of dawn filtered through the tents, Captain Harris surveyed the gathered crew, his weather-beaten face registering a calm confidence that belied the sleepless night.
As used in the text, what does the word “registering” most nearly mean?
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from an essay about urban design.
When plans for the public plaza were first unveiled, they included an elaborate fountain, a performance stage, and several covered seating areas. As construction costs rose, however, budget constraints checked the designers’ ambitions, and the completed plaza featured a modest fountain and only two shelters.
As used in the text, what does the word “checked” most nearly mean?
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from a contemporary short story. The narrator describes a fundraiser hosted by the narrator’s aunt.
Aunt Liora’s movements had the smoothness of hospitality but none of its responsiveness. Each compliment prompted the same measured laugh, and each question redirected her toward the portraits, as though the guests were merely supplying cues in a scene whose timing she alone knew. Even her warmth felt studied: exact enough to satisfy convention yet oddly untouched by what anyone had actually said.
As used in the text, what does the word “studied” most nearly mean?
Practice problem
The following text is adapted from a 1910 polar expedition diary.
Weeks of headwind had pared our rations and our spirits. I ordered that we husband the lamp oil, lighting it only at dusk, and that we keep the dogs in harness but spare them the whip.
As used in the text, what does the word “husband” most nearly mean?
Practice problem
An editorial keen to celebrate the city’s rising test scores nevertheless ______ its praise by noting that the gains were concentrated in neighborhoods already affluent.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Finish the lesson
Finish the remaining questions correctly to complete this lesson.
To build the vocabulary these questions use, study the SAT vocabulary words and take the free quiz.
Next lesson
Work out a word you’ve never seen from its prefix, root and suffix.
Start next lessonPractice
Put what you learned to work on real SAT Reading & Writing questions.
Words in Context question bank