A words in context question about a change tests whether you can use the text to find the missing word's meaning. Read the whole passage and compare the before and after. Ask whether the nearby details explain the change or suggest the opposite, then predict the blank in plain words. For an unfamiliar choice, use word parts you recognize to help find its meaning. A word can fit the topic without describing the change the text shows.
Hints
- Hint 1
Compare the abandoned parking lot with the garden residents created. Look for what changed in the neighborhood.
- Hint 2
Use the words after the blank to make a prediction. What do they tell you the project did to the area?
Step-by-step
Use the change to predict the word
Step 1Compare the lot before and after
The residents turned an abandoned parking lot into a community garden overflowing with vegetables and flowers. What changed? A space that wasn't being used became full of growing plants, so the blank must describe what the project did to the neighborhood.
- Step 2
Predict from the project's result
What does making the area cleaner and more welcoming add? It gives the result of the project, so the blank should point the same way as that improvement. Let's predict brought new life to, since the garden made the area a better place to be.
- Step 3
Test the meanings and word parts
Neglected means failed to care for, and interrupted means broke into or stopped, so neither describes how the garden improved the area. Inherited means received from someone before you, but the text describes creating a garden rather than receiving a neighborhood. Revitalized means gave new life to: re- means again, and vital means full of life. That describes the garden's effect in making the area cleaner and more welcoming. Choice D.