A words in context question tests whether you can use clues to find the missing word’s meaning. Read the whole text and follow the turn from the opening view to what comes next. For a blank in the conclusion, ask which part of the reasoning it sums up, then predict in plain words with the choices covered. Check each word’s meaning against that prediction. A word can fit the topic yet name a quality the text never shows.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the turn after the officials’ assumption, beginning with But.
- Hint 2
Compare the grant’s label with its effect on spending. Does paying for the planned purchases have to raise textbook or total education spending?
- Hint 3
Track both sources of money. Once the grant pays for textbooks, what happens to the local revenue originally meant for them?
Step-by-step
Follow the turn and trace the money
Step 1Follow the turn
The officials expect textbook spending to rise by the full amount of the grant, an expectation the next sentence challenges. Which view should the concluding blank follow? Because the blank comes after this turn, it describes the grant’s effect in practice, not what officials first assume.
- Step 2
Predict from the funding swap
What happens if the textbooks were already going to be bought? The district can substitute the grant and redirect that revenue to noneducation uses, so the grant pays for the planned books while the local money becomes available for something else. The grant itself still pays for textbooks; it’s the freed local revenue that can leave education. That lets us predict able to take other money’s place, even though the grant is labeled for textbooks.
- Step 3
Check added funding and formal limits
Supplemental means added to what’s already provided, but neither textbook purchases nor total education spending must increase, so the grant doesn’t have to add education funding. What about restricted, meaning limited to a certain use? That repeats the formal textbook label, but despite its formal designation points to the freedom the swap gives the district.
- Step 4
Check the exact meaning
Does liquid name this swap? Liquid means available as cash or able to be turned into cash without much trouble, which says nothing about replacing local funding. Fungible means interchangeable with something of the same kind, so it fits it can substitute the grant: one source of money can do the other’s job. Choice C.