A words in context question tests how precisely a word fits the clues around a blank. When the sentence goes beyond a broad description, read what follows the blank to see what it adds. Use those clues to predict the meaning in plain words, then test each choice by its meaning. A choice must describe the relationship the text shows, not another relationship that could seem reasonable for the topic.
Hints
- Hint 1
Find the rule linking tax yield to mapped area. What stays the same across maps made by different surveyors?
- Hint 2
Use the result after the blank to predict the verb’s meaning. What must the distortions do for researchers to reconstruct the districts’ relative fiscal rank?
Step-by-step
Follow the rule to a precise meaning
Step 1Find the repeatable pattern
The first sentence gives our clue to the missing verb: the greater a district's expected tax yield, the more its mapped area was enlarged. Is that one surveyor’s habit? No, the same proportional rule appears across maps by different surveyors, so size changes track tax yield in a repeatable way.
- Step 2
Use the result to predict
What can researchers do because of that rule? The phrase allowing the relative fiscal rank of districts to be reconstructed from differences in scale means they can work backward from map sizes to the districts’ tax ranking. The words do more than generally reflect push us beyond a loose sign of what officials valued. Predict a verb meaning carry information about the priorities in a readable form.
- Step 3
Test what each verb describes
Now test what each verb says happens to the priorities. Obscure means hide or make unclear, which works against allowing the relative fiscal rank of districts to be reconstructed. Legitimize means make something seem proper or acceptable, but the passage never says the maps justify the priorities. Standardize means make uniform, but a shared mapping rule doesn't show that the distortions made officials' administrative priorities uniform.
- Step 4
Match the rule to the word
Encode means to represent information through a system of signs or rules. The maps use differences in scale as those signs, so the distortions represent the tax ranking through a readable rule. Choice D.