A words in context question tests whether you can use the text to find the meaning a blank needs. Read the whole sentence and look for the phrase that explains the blank, even if it comes after a comma. Ask whether that clue restates the idea, gives a cause or result, or turns against it. Then predict in plain words and test each choice by its meaning. A word can fit the topic and still miss what the clue describes.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the phrase after the blank. How does it describe the employees’ daily schedules?
- Hint 2
What does constantly add to shifting? Use both words to predict the blank’s meaning.
Step-by-step
Find the clue, predict, and test
Step 1Read the explanation after the blank
Read shifting constantly between professional tasks and personal responsibilities, the phrase after the blank. These words are our context clue: they show what the missing word must mean about the employees’ daily schedules. Does the phrase explain their description or turn against it? It explains it, so the blank must go in the same direction as the clue.
- Step 2
Predict and test the meanings
What plain words describe a schedule that is shifting constantly? It keeps changing as employees move between work and personal needs, so predict changing rather than fixed. Rigid means fixed and hard to change, which runs against that prediction. Monotonous means dull because the same thing keeps repeating, but the text tells us about switching responsibilities, not about feeling bored.
- Step 3
Distinguish change from occasional activity
Does sporadic describe the kind of change the clue shows? Sporadic means happening only now and then, with gaps, but shifting constantly describes change that keeps happening, not change that happens only now and then. Fluid means able to change rather than staying fixed, so it matches the meaning we predicted. Put it in the sentence: a fluid schedule keeps changing between professional tasks and personal responsibilities. The words after the blank explain that change. Choice B.