A words in context question tests whether you can work out a missing word's meaning from the text. Read the sentence and ask how the earlier interest connects to the later decision. Find the clue that explains the connection, using linking words to tell whether ideas agree, contrast, or show cause and effect. Predict in plain words, then compare the choices' meanings. A word can sound natural but add an idea the text never supports.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at what comes after the comma. What does it tell you about the role her curiosity played during her years of study?
- Hint 2
Now predict the missing verb in plain words. Use what her curiosity did during her studies to explain its link to her decision.
Step-by-step
Use the clue to predict the verb
Step 1Find what the verb connects
The sentence links her childhood curiosity about the stars to her decision to pursue astrophysics. What does the blank ask us to name? It's a verb showing what that curiosity did to her decision, so we need the link between her early interest and her career choice.
- Step 2
Predict from the guiding role
What does guiding her through years of rigorous study tell us about that link? Her curiosity kept giving her direction as she studied astrophysics, so it played a part in the path she took. The phrase is a context clue, words that show what the blank must mean. We can predict influenced her decision, because the sentence connects that choice to an interest that continued to guide her.
- Step 3
Test the other meanings
Belied means contradicted or showed to be false, while impeded means held back or got in the way. Does either meaning describe curiosity that was guiding her through years of rigorous study? No, because her curiosity gave her direction rather than contradicting her choice or blocking it. Disguised means hid something's true nature, and nothing says her curiosity hid her decision.
- Step 4
Match the meaning to the decision
To shape something is to influence how it develops or what form it takes. So shaped says her childhood curiosity helped form her decision to pursue astrophysics, which gives us the effect of her interest on her career choice. Choice C.